Help converting old Mac documents

Discussion in 'Mac Help/Tips' started by jeremy.king, Dec 31, 2002.

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  1. jeremy.king, Dec 31, 2002

    jeremy.king macrumors 603

    jeremy.king

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2002
    Location:
    Fuquay Varina, NC
    #1
    Okay, heres the situation...My parents went away for a weeks vacation (sorry, got a little old school there).

    I have a bunch of documents that I created in college in the mid to late 90s on a mac (OS 7 and 8 days). Unfortunately, I don't remember what I created them with. Actually, I thought I used Wordperfect but that was unsuccessful.

    These files have moved computers a few times and currently reside on my Winblows PC.

    So my question to all my fellow mac lovers. How can I figure out what application created these documents and how can I convert them to a more recent (say Microsoft Word) document format?

    Finally, this all has to be done on a PC or Jaguar only. I saw that File Typer application but it seems to only support classic OSes.

    Any ideas?

    I really don't want to buy software to do this, so please try to suggest demo/trial/shareware ideas...

    Thanks in advance.

    Jeremy
     
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  2. cubist, Dec 31, 2002

    cubist macrumors 68020

    Joined:
    Jul 4, 2002
    Location:
    Muncie, Indiana
    #2
    They are on a PC now, right? You don't have the original disks?

    If you do, you can go to a thrift store and find a used Centris 610, Mac SE or something along that line, put the disks in, and then use file typer to see what the type and creator codes are. I have a mac addict disk somewhere with an extensive database of type and creator codes.

    File Typer works in classic, but that assumes you can get the files onto your jaguar machine in their original format. Mac OS X doesn't support floppy drives, apparently.

    If you don't, WordPerfect was really your best hope, because the pc & mac versions were supposedly binary-compatible. When the files were transferred to the PC (how?), you probably lost the resource forks and the type and creator codes. (OTOH, if they got transferred as 'macbinary' you have only to strip off the first 16 bytes.)

    Your next hope is to write or find a program analogous to the Unix 'strings' program which extracts printable text from the binary word processing files. Say, maybe Jaguar includes strings?

    Some folks may know some 'magic' way to do it.
     
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  3. jeremy.king, Dec 31, 2002

    jeremy.king thread starter macrumors 603

    jeremy.king

    Joined:
    Jul 23, 2002
    Location:
    Fuquay Varina, NC
    #3
    more to that...

    All the files were moved via network transfers. First from my Powermac 7100 to my Powermac 6400 then to an iMac and then to my Powerbook and then to my Windows XP machine. I sold the powerbook to buy a new powermac.

    I can get them back onto my new dual 867, however, I don't have a classic OS installed and have no intention on doing so.

    I can strip out all the text no problem cause when I open them in Word 2000 it shows me everything. But I was hoping for some easy program that may exist that I can point a file at and it would say "Hey, Jeremy! You created that using Appleworks! Would you like me to convert it to Microsoft Word for you?"

    These documents don't have a lot of significance to me except I wanted to see what a scholar I used to be. All the malted hops and barley have melted my once intelligent mind. I don't really want to buy an antique Mac to convert docs.

    So File Typer may do this for me?

    Maybe I could zip these up and send off to one of my beloved mac fans and see if they could help out a friend in need? Heck, if you really wanted, you could even use the papers althought I don't promote plagarism. I'll gaurantee you get an F or better. :)
     
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