On 31 Mar 2004 16:04:27 -0800, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Dennis Roberts) wrote: > We have been having a discussion on the Minitab list about how current > releases of Minitab will not open considerably older Minitab worksheet > files ... and there seems to be NO practical way to solve this problem. > > Does anyone know if any of the other major packages like SPSS or SYSTAT or > SAS, etc. ... have similar problems? That is ... if you have very early > versions of one of those and had SAVED files ... that current versions will > NOT automatically open those older files? > > My question is ... is this a source of ire with other software users too > ... other than old time users of Minitab?
SPSS version 5.x was a disaster on VAX-VMS systems. It opened previous files, and would have the right number of cases, but the data values were all 0 or infinite. There was a solution, by writing an 'export' version of the file. That is the ASCII-compatible dump that could always be transferred between systems. IIRC, Version 6 did not like the old files, either. That is the most recent version for VMS, 6 or 8 years ago, which I still used by preference over the PC version, now at Version 12. (I like having the ASCII files that I could print with flexible printer options, on a high-quality printer.) -- Rich Ulrich, [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.pitt.edu/~wpilib/index.html . . ================================================================= Instructions for joining and leaving this list, remarks about the problem of INAPPROPRIATE MESSAGES, and archives are available at: . http://jse.stat.ncsu.edu/ . =================================================================
