You're right, the files are now on a Windows machine, and I'm trying to
open them from either a linux or Windows box. However, I think the
MacWrite hypothesis is a good one, so I'm hoping to find a macintosh
around campus I can try it out on. I'll keep y'all informed....
Andy
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Andrew J Perrin - andrew_perrin (at) unc.edu - http://perrin.socsci.unc.edu
Assistant Professor of Sociology; Book Review Editor, _Social Forces_
University of North Carolina - CB#3210, Chapel Hill, NC 27599-3210 USA
New Book: http://www.press.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/hfs.cgi/00/178592.ctl
On Wed, 23 Aug 2006, Rick DeNatale wrote:
Well, I guess I might as well be consistent with the top-posting.
It looks though, that he's trying to open these files on a non-mac, in
which case there's a problem.
The Macintosh file systems HFS and later HFS+ used forked files, each
file had a 'data' fork and a 'resource' fork. Depending the
application, the 'data' could be stored in either fork or both.
These might give some ideas about how to access those files from linux
http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Filesystems-HOWTO-7.html
http://www.mars.org/home/rob/proj/hfs/
But it seems that most of the mac compatibility tools work with file
systems and not individual files. Depending on how the files were
copied he may or may not be able to do anything with them.
On 8/23/06, Glenn Hennessee <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Mac Plus (introduced 1986, discontinued 1990) and 1991: it probably is a
MacWrite or MacWrite II document. Word certainly existed then and had a
~50% market share. Try this (from
http://emperor.tidbits.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]@.3c71323e/28):
Re: Opening old MacWrite files
To open old WriteNow files (mine are from 85-86): I discovered that MS
Word for Mac (10.1.4) will do it. Drop the WriteNow file on the Word
icon in the Dock, a "Convert File" dialog appears, scroll to "Recover
Text from Any File". The file will have some garbage with the text - but
it is not difficult to clean up.
Using the Open.. command on the file menu doesn't work, the WriteNow
document icons remain dimmed. I don't have any of my old MacWrite files
left to try.
May be the only time MS was ever useful for me.
Jack Corliss
and
Re: Opening old MacWrite files
I open MacWrite files with Word 5.1. They open fine, except you have to
use the Open dialogue. You can't drag them onto the icon. I then save
them as Word 5.1 files and open in Word 2004.
Since the MacIntel machines will not run OS 9, I was planning to do a
final conversion of my thousands of MacWrite files through some
automated process, with Quickeys, Applescript, HyperCard, Revolution or
something else.
There must be lots of people in this position. Does anyone know of a
posted script or other solution for this?
Bruce
Try dropping the files on the Word icon in the dock. This may work no
matter what the document format since it seems word for mac knows how to
deal with a lot of old format files but just not as a File, Open operation.
glenn
Andrew Perrin wrote:
> Greetings, folks.
>
> My wife has a folder of old (circa 1991) files created on her Macintosh
> Plus during medical school. Neither of us can remember what word
> processor she used to write these.
>
> They now reside in a folder on her computer, and we would like to be
> able to open them. However, just opening them in emacs, Word, etc.,
> produces gibberish. I get the following output from file:
>
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]:/mnt/elianasdocs/OLDMAC$ file 3RDLAB~1
> 3RDLAB~1: TTComp archive data
>
>
>
>
> Does this ring a bell to anyone? Any ideas where to go with it?
>
> Thanks.
>
--
Rick DeNatale
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