> I have a serial cable and have tried to hyperterm into it but get
> nothing.
<snip>
> There is a floppy drive on it, don't have any disks but even if I did
> what is going to read them anyway ?
>
> From what I can see the file is only ~800k it's a SYLK file I think ?

On Jul 1, 3:06 pm, Todd Brayer <[email protected]> wrote:
> Find a PC with a floppy drive. There should be plenty of them around
> considering PCs shipped with floppy drives pretty late, especially Dells and
> other biz computers.

Hey Magic, if it's only about an 800k file, DO go with the floppy
idea, but DON'T put just any 3.5" disk in there.  Through a long and
tedious process I learned how to do what you wanna do.  Just follow
these steps and assuming you're using System 7 or later, this should
work fine:

a).Find an old Mac "2.0MB" disk that you DON'T need and know works in
the Mac.  This is the same kinda disk that a PC uses, but Apple could
get more data on the disk and so it's called 2MB or HD/HDD (High
Density Disk), rather that "IBM" 1.44MB.

b). From a Windows XP/Vista/7 PC, insert the diskette and open "My
Computer", then right-click on it when it shows up (as "A" drive
usually) and select "Format".  When the format dialog window comes up,
make sure you choose FAT as the format type ( not FAT32, NTFS, etc.).
Also, don't select "Quick Format", just to be safe.  Remember,
formatting erased all data from the disk!  After the format, take the
disk back to the Mac, and insert the formatted floppy.  It should
appear on the desktop (usually as "UNTITLED".

c).Now, we need to prepare your 800k file for PC's that have no
resource fork.  So, use a compression utility to ZIP it and make sure
the (zipped file) name is no longer than 8 characters, not including
the extension (this is a limitation of FAT).  Copy your new zip file
to your freshly formatted disk in the Mac, then eject it (drag icon
onto trash).

d).  Copy the new ZIP file to the PC from the disk and maybe make a
few backups The final part may be cake or it may be a pain, depending
on many things.  Looks like you personally should unzip the file in a
new directory in windows, then open Excel and select "Import File" (or
whatever), then select the unzipped file to be imported.  If that
fails, the solution is too complicated for this post.  If you need
more help, send me the file and I'll have it in a PC AND working in
under 30 mins....

But I hope you figure this out.  Sounds like you have the technical
knowledge to do it.  Just do a bit of googling.  I noticed CSV files
are related to SLYK files, so maybe you can use Excel or on the Mac to
Save/Export to a format that is known to work.

E-mail me if I can help

PCs and Macs have always used different Read/Write methods at the
hardware level, but the disks were usually the same.  The original
Macs (after 128k floppys) had drives that used single or double sided
disks.  PCs had the same type, but Macs were called 800k and PC disks
720k, due to the differences in how they read the disks.  Same for HD
disks that were 2:0MB and 1.44MB respectively.

Hope this help someone.

-Joel

On Jun 29, 6:27 pm, MrMagic <[email protected]> wrote:
> Hi All,
> I have been given a Mac Performa 580 which holds some company data
> from 8 years ago. They have been happily using this database to
> occasionally look for reference numbers, approximately once every
> couple of months.
>
> The Mac is still working fine, as you'd expect ! Although the screen
> is getting a bit faded as you'd expect also. So the users have thought
> about getting the files accross onto a pc, well that wasn't as easy as
> Ithought it would be.
>
> I have a serial cable and have tried to hyperterm into it but get
> nothing.
>
> I don't know what the default config is meant to be, baud rate,
> parity, tried a few combinations, and still didn't get anywhere.
>
> There is a floppy drive on it, don't have any disks but even if I did
> what is going to read them anyway ?
>
> From what I can see the file is only ~800k it's a SYLK file I think ?
>
> If anyone can help please let me know, happy to pay for help to get it
> done. The best way might be for you to tell me how to do it rather
> than me sending things as I'm in Tasmania Australia.
>
> Cheers
> Mark

-- 
-----
You received this message because you are a member of the Vintage Macs group.
The list FAQ is at http://lowendmac.com/lists/vintagemacs.shtml and our 
netiquette guide is at http://www.lowendmac.com/lists/netiquette.shtml
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To leave this group, send email to [email protected]
For more options, visit this group at 
http://groups.google.com/group/vintage-macs

Support for older Macs: http://lowendmac.com/services/

Reply via email to