Apple IIe + VisiCalc Question

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Apple IIe + VisiCalc Question

Years ago a family member used an Apple IIe (which is still functional including 5.25" floppy drives, printer, etc) to create some personal financial files with VisiCalc - the spreadsheet of choice at the time. We can read the files on the IIe and even print them out - but it would help a great deal if we could somehow convert them or import them into either Appleworks or Microsoft Excel. Does anyone know how we can do this? A friend said "save the files as a text file on the IIe and then it can be imported into another machine." Is that true?

Apple IIe, Windows XP

Posted on Jul 25, 2006 1:07 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

JustSomeGuy

Level 3

606 points

Jul 25, 2006 2:09 PM in response to Have Questions

Well, sure, it's true. But you need a way to get the data off the Apple IIe and onto a more "modern" platform. There are lots of ways to go about that, mostly depending upon the hardware you have available to you. Your options include:

* Connecting the Apple II to a PC or Mac via a serial link and transmitting (text) files using a telecomms program on either end

* Connecting the Apple II to a PC or Mac via a serial link and transferring physical floppies to virtual floppies ( http://adtpro.sourceforge.net, http://adt.berlios.de).

There is much detail on physical serial connections here:
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2T1TCOM.html

If you have a 3.5" floppy attached to the IIe (probably not altogether likely, but...) you can copy your files to the 3.5" floppy, go through an intermediate 800k floppy drive on an old Mac, then finally transfer up to the most modern computer you have. See:
http://forums.macosxhints.com/showthread.php?t=36900&highlight=800k

And that just gets the data from the Apple IIe onto the computers you use today. If it's already in text form, you're probably good to go to insert into a new spreadsheet. It's unlikely that the native VisiCalc format will be readable by anything you have now, though.

- David

iMac 17" Mac OS X (10.3.9) Mac IIci, Mac SE, Apple IIgs, Apple //e, Apple ][+

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Answer 2

Jul 25, 2006 3:02 PM in response to Have Questions

HQ,

Here is a website with drive options that will give you the ability to convert to 3.5" floppies.

http://www.vintagemacworld.com/drives.html

It has been a couple of decades so my memory may be playing tricks but I think you may have to "print to disk" in ascii. If VisiCalc does have the 'save as' option, SYLC will be the best.

A text file will give you the data but a SYLK file will include formulas.

Jim

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Answer 3

Jul 26, 2006 5:12 AM in response to Appaloosa mac man

Got a tutorial of Visicalc for IIe.
The files can be saved in three different ways.
IF saved in DIF(Data Interchange Format) it may be read with other programs. You can read rows or colummns just as saved.
It seems to be more easy to print out the necessary files-and scan them.

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Answer 4

Jul 26, 2006 5:58 AM in response to Have Questions

Just picked up a copy of VisiCalc... I see it is possible to "print" to the serial port. That would cut out the intermediate step of saving it to disk in any particular format.

- David

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Answer 5

Jul 29, 2006 11:02 AM in response to AppleIIFreak

You mentioned printing & scanning. I can do a complete printout using the AIIe tractor feed printer. Could I then scan it and import the scan into Excel, for example?

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Answer 6

Jul 29, 2006 11:13 AM in response to JustSomeGuy

Thanks for your replies.

Based on this, what if I can find / get access to an older PC with a 5.25" floppy drive, which would also have an old version Excel, do you think this would work?

1. Save the files to 5.25 floppy using AIIe / VisiCalc as text files.
2. Insert the floppy in PC 5.25 drive and import the text files into Excel?

Do you think the PC 5.25 drive will read the AIIe floppy?
And will Excel import the file directly?

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Answer 7

Jul 29, 2006 11:35 AM in response to Have Questions

Do you think the PC 5.25 drive will read the AIIe
floppy?

No. Well, almost probably not; but there are exceptions. See:
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2DSKETTE.html#007

And will Excel import the file directly?

Almost certainly not. Visicalc doesn't seem to want to save anything but its native format. It will send text out the serial (or parallel) port, but that's about it.

Here's the data it transports to the outside world:

B3:"CELL B3
A3:"CELL A3
B2:"CELL B2
A2:"CELL A2
B1:"CELL B1
A1:"CELL A1

/W1
/GOC
/GRA
/GC9
/X!/X>A1:>B3:

That's what a simple spreadsheet looks like; I put text "CELL A1" and so on for cells A1 through B3. Not hard to decompose, but it would take a little scripting.

- David

iMac 17" Mac OS X (10.3.9) Mac IIci, Mac SE, Apple IIgs, Apple //e, Apple ][+

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Answer 8

Jul 29, 2006 12:06 PM in response to JustSomeGuy

And will Excel import the file directly?

Almost certainly not.

I stand corrected. You can "print to file" that puts standard text out to the floppy. Importing back into Excel (or whatever) will take a little doing, since it doesn't delimit with anything but spaces. But the columns it puts out seem to be of fixed width anyway.

- David

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Answer 9

Jul 29, 2006 9:44 PM in response to JustSomeGuy

For Disk2FDI(up to windows ME,two! drives needed on PC) you may look here.
http://www.oldskool.org/disk2fdi
You may look for CrossWorks(software,cable,SuperSerialCard needed)
Quoted:
"There is a Sequential Systems package named "CrossWorks" which lets you transfer Appleworks, Word Perfect, text, and other ProDOS files to a PC and transform them to a variety of PC formats including those which fit a variety
of PC word processors"
From
http://home.swbell.net/rubywand/Csa2FLUTILS.html#007
"For IBM folk,The CrossWorks program can convert between many Apple and IBM formats, and even comes with a universal null modem cable"

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Answer 10

Jul 29, 2006 10:09 PM in response to AppleIIFreak

Addition
For Crossworks you may search for "BillGarber" at comp.sys.apple2 to get more info(got info from his site).

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Answer 11

Jul 30, 2006 4:10 PM in response to JustSomeGuy

"But the columns it puts out seem to be of fixed width anyway."

That regularity allows programs like Word and Works to add the tab delimiters back in. Older versions of Works also allows for designating up to 20 caridge returns to be grouped as one record to reconstruct tab/return (new line) instructions.

Jim

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