[vcf-midatlantic] Moving files from an old 68k-Mac to an emulator or other machine

[David Riley]

On Sep 18, 2020, at 8:04 AM, Richard Cini via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at 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