Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine
Rich Cini says: have an old System 7 or 8 Mac, it put files on a Mac format ZIP disk. Then run a recent-enough OSX (pre 10.15) Mac that can read the ZIP disk via a USB ZIP drive. OK, got that. But I got lost when Rich said "use an emulator to get the files into the emulation environment". Rich, were/are you trying to copy files onto some modern computer, to make use of them with modern software? Or ... copy files ... to *run* them under some emulation of say Mac System 7? Or, both? People ask me about such things often enough. It would be good if I can tell them what they may be able to do. Most people won't want to run an emulator, they just want to migrate old files or at least archive it. I always warn them of the problem of old programs that make files, that new programs can't read (even if you "copy" them over to the new computer). regards, Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info
Herb - The backstory is that I wanted to bring a “Mac on a Stick” to my mom’s house and show her the old files and things from when she taught English at the middle school in her town (she’s long retired now). There’s a lot of interesting stuff she collected and some very creative things she did using PageMaker. So, I created a vMac environment on a thumb drive that actually matched her system (MacSE, 100MB drive, all the same software). The original programs exist on-line (I have most of the disks too) but I needed the data. But, you bring up an excellent point about data migration in general. I’ve done it a handful of times on individual files and it requires multiple machines running different versions of the program. For example, migrating a Word for Mac 1.0 document with formatting requires it being passed through at least two versions to get it “modern” enough to work. Or even like an old WordPerfect 5 doc on the PC. And that doesn’t even cover a file on an old S100 machine where there is a migration “dead end” like WordStar. Those you just need to find the “lowest common denominator” file and bring that over. Rich http://www.classiccmp.org/cini Long Island S100 User’s Group Get Outlook<https://aka.ms/qtex0l> for iOS ________________________________ From: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic-bounces@lists.vcfed.org> on behalf of Herb Johnson via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2020 11:46:19 PM To: vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> Cc: Herb Johnson <hjohnson@retrotechnology.info> Subject: Re: [vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine Rich Cini says: have an old System 7 or 8 Mac, it put files on a Mac format ZIP disk. Then run a recent-enough OSX (pre 10.15) Mac that can read the ZIP disk via a USB ZIP drive. OK, got that. But I got lost when Rich said "use an emulator to get the files into the emulation environment". Rich, were/are you trying to copy files onto some modern computer, to make use of them with modern software? Or ... copy files ... to *run* them under some emulation of say Mac System 7? Or, both? People ask me about such things often enough. It would be good if I can tell them what they may be able to do. Most people won't want to run an emulator, they just want to migrate old files or at least archive it. I always warn them of the problem of old programs that make files, that new programs can't read (even if you "copy" them over to the new computer). regards, Herb -- Herbert R. Johnson, New Jersey in the USA http://www.retrotechnology.com OR .net preserve, recover, restore 1970's computing email: hjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT com or try later herbjohnson AT retrotechnology DOT info
On Sep 18, 2020, at 8:04 AM, Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
But, you bring up an excellent point about data migration in general. I’ve done it a handful of times on individual files and it requires multiple machines running different versions of the program. For example, migrating a Word for Mac 1.0 document with formatting requires it being passed through at least two versions to get it “modern” enough to work. Or even like an old WordPerfect 5 doc on the PC. And that doesn’t even cover a file on an old S100 machine where there is a migration “dead end” like WordStar. Those you just need to find the “lowest common denominator” file and bring that over.
Have you tried MacLink Plus for the format translations? It covers most of the formats you mentioned and did a pretty OK job back in the day (as with any format translation, there was usually some cleanup involved, but it usually didn't totally wreck it). It even covered a lot of PC document formats, and I recall WordStar being one of them. I just sent it (and a pile of other desktop publishing/media apps of that vintage) to a friend, otherwise I'd offer to send you my old boxed copy. - Dave
I have not tried that, but I'll search for it. Good to have another tool in the toolbox. Rich -- Rich Cini http://www.classiccmp.org/cini http://www.classiccmp.org/altair32 On 9/18/20, 9:47 AM, "David Riley" <fraveydank@gmail.com> wrote: On Sep 18, 2020, at 8:04 AM, Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote: > > But, you bring up an excellent point about data migration in general. I’ve done it a handful of times on individual files and it requires multiple machines running different versions of the program. For example, migrating a Word for Mac 1.0 document with formatting requires it being passed through at least two versions to get it “modern” enough to work. Or even like an old WordPerfect 5 doc on the PC. And that doesn’t even cover a file on an old S100 machine where there is a migration “dead end” like WordStar. Those you just need to find the “lowest common denominator” file and bring that over. Have you tried MacLink Plus for the format translations? It covers most of the formats you mentioned and did a pretty OK job back in the day (as with any format translation, there was usually some cleanup involved, but it usually didn't totally wreck it). It even covered a lot of PC document formats, and I recall WordStar being one of them. I just sent it (and a pile of other desktop publishing/media apps of that vintage) to a friend, otherwise I'd offer to send you my old boxed copy. - Dave
participants (3)
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David Riley -
Herb Johnson -
Richard Cini