My dad has an old apple IIGS, and I would like to be able to email him, and possibly Skype one day, so I'd like to get him an iMac. His reason for not wanting to upgrade is all of his old wordperfect files that are saved on 3.5 and 5" discs will be lost. Does anyone know of a way to get his files from his discs, and onto a new computer?
Depending on where you live, there are services that can copy floppy disks to other media, for a fee of course. Or, depending on the computers you have at your disposal, you can use an external 3.5" drive to copy those disks, the 5's a bit more of a problem.
All I can suggest is to identify the most important files, print them (this would likely have to be to a dot matrix printer), then scan them to text (the OCR should have a setting to accommodate dot matrix) into the new iMac. Surely these old files are no longer subject to editing and modification; your Dad could just print them and file the hard copy.
Hi,
Even with a new iMac available, it would probably not be a bad idea to keep the IIGS in storage, thus allowing the floppy disks to be read without too much difficulty in the future.
In principle, with the appropriate communications software, it should be possible to transfer files from the IIGS (via a serial port) to another computer through a serial modem or a null-modem cable. Depending upon how the other computer (Mac or PC) is equipped, a modem or a USB-to-serial adapter (and suitable software) may have to be added on that side. Also, the file format of the transferred documents has to be understood by a word-processing program (or a conversion utility) on the more modern computer.
Jan
This may sound crazy but if you wanted to you can pick up an old "Beige" G3 233/266/300 etc for around $100 to $150 off of eBay that has a Floppy. Then all you have to do is install Mac OS 10.2.8 or whatever comes with it. After that you can transfer all data from 3.5" to the hard disk and then from 5" to 3.5" on the IIGS. Then keep going from 3.5 to HD. After you are all done right click the folder the files are in and zip them. You could then email the 5 MB or so file to anyone...
Have fun...
I bet this was already posted, but with an External USB floppy and some software, can't you retrieve the files on the 3.5 disks? As for the 5 inch models, that's a tough one 😟
Also, well done to your Dad for keeping the computer in working condition for such a long time, I'm sure a IIGS would fetch a lot of money if he were to sell it so an Apple Collector 🙂
The first thing to remember is that files on the IIGS are in PRODOS. You will need a program called Passport or Apple File Exchange to translate the files to something that a G3 will read. Here is the process: The 3.5 disks will go into an old SE, Mac LC or other cheap early mac. Those machined usually had Apple File Exchange. The 3.5 disk will go into a G3 but the biggest problem that you may find is that older floppy drives do not always read disks that were not created by that drive.
We can put a floppy disk into five different computers and only one or two will read the disk. The best method is to format a disk in the machine that you are moving files to. Then put the disk into the machine that you are moving the files from. If the disk is recognized, then copy files onto the disk and the newer machine should read the files. Keep trying disks and formatting until one combination works.
Here is a site that gives good information on different drives.
http://vintagemacworld.com/drives.html
If you can post back with the name of a large city near you we might be able to find you a user group that has resources.
Ji~m
Apple IIGS; Time for an upgrade?
