Transferring Data from Hypercard 2.2

The question is how you are going to use any files on a PC. HyperCard was made for Macintosh computers. Are you thinking of running the program under some kind of emulation? Certain other applications may be able to import/convert HyperCard data, but possibly with limited functionality as a result. A professional service for conversions to some third-party formats could also be worth investigating.

The best solution may well be to keep on running HyperCard on the PowerBook Duo 280 (or another old Macintosh computer). A utility called PrintToPDF (http://www.jwwalker.com/pages/pdf.html) could perhaps be of interest in this context.

The actual transfer of (for example, PDF) files to a Windows PC can be done in various ways. I assume that you have access to the external floppy drive (or a DuoDock) for the PowerBook Duo 280. With the PC Exchange control panel installed and active, PC-formatted 1.44 MB floppy disks can be used directly. Transfers on Mac-formatted 1.44 MB floppies would require a Windows utility (like an appropriate version of TransMac) for Macintosh disks on the PC. The PC may need an external USB floppy drive. A null-modem transfer could be another solution. Networking (via a dock) may also be possible.

Hi,

PrintToPDF will only make a PDF file of the information that you normally would get on paper when printing.

Download the .sit file to your PC. Keep the file as it is. Copy it onto a PC-formatted 1.44 MB floppy and transfer to the PB Duo 280. At the Duo, StuffIt Expander (5.0 or higher) will be needed. Drag the file onto the StuffIt Expander program icon, or launch the utility and expand the file via the File menu. If you do not have StuffIt Expander, please post back.

The problem is that all appropriate StuffIt Expander (for Macintosh) downloads are encoded (.bin or .hqx) or compressed (.sit) for protection. Macintosh application files consist of two parts, one data and one resource fork. If such a file is handled unencoded by a PC, the resource fork will be lost/damaged.

There is a special method for using a Windows/DOS PC to directly produce a Macintosh (sic!) disk, complete with a ready-to-use StuffIt EXpander 4.0.1 installer. Just follow the instructions here: Re: How can I write to 1.44fd from OS X 10.10.3?. Install the StuffIt Expander 4.0.1 version on the PowerBook Duo 280.

However, since the PrintToPDF .sit download needs at least StuffIt Expander 5.0 (according to the web page information), things get a bit more complicated. You will have to obtain a suitable version somewhere (.bin or .hqx would be OK now, because the 4.0.1 version can carry out the decoding). Try a Google search for StuffIt Expander 5.5. Download the .bin or .hqx file onto the PC. Keep the file as it is. Copy it to a 1.44 MB PC-formatted floppy (plain copy). Move the floppy with the .bin or .hqx file to the PB Duo 280. Decode the .bin or .hqx file by dragging it onto the existing 4.0.1 program icon (or go via the File menu after the utility has been launched). Install version 5.5 on the PB Duo 280.

>How to I get Print to PDF as a print option? When I print, the only option I get is to print to an Imagewriter.

Is the PrintToPDF Chooser extension in the Extensions folder? If not, drag the PrintToPDF file onto the System Folder icon, and the extension will be correctly placed. When ready, restart the computer. PrintToPDF should then appear in the Chooser window. If you select the PrintToPDF icon in the Chooser, and then choose to print, you should be able to produce a PDF file (instead of a "normal" printed document).

>is there a way to save my data in a format such that I can manipulate the data once transferred to a PC?

Does the HyperCard program/version in question have any Save As (or export) options (list of file formats, etc) at all under the File menu or elsewhere?

With the exception of manual Copy and Paste operations (for example, one can often copy text from an open PDF document on a PC, and then paste into another open program), the data manipulation possibilities are limited. Since no real direct export options from your HyperCard program appear to exist, you would probably need a third-party product to do what you have in mind.

I do not know whether something like HyperPort, which according to the web page (http://www.dannyg.com/archive/hyperport.html) has been released as a free download by the author, could be made to work at all on the PB Duo 280. The download is over 8 MB; you may want to extract it in order to study the PDF manual on your PC, but if you wish to make an experimental attempt to use it on the PB Duo 280, the whole .zip file should probably be transferred unaltered (and you would need a suitable zip decompression utility for Mac). Obviously, a single floppy disk does not have the capacity to hold the entire file, so a null-modem link could be one way. Alternatively, do you have access to a dock that provides a SCSI port for the PB Duo 280 (that would allow an external SCSI CD-ROM drive to be connected)? BTW, which operating system version is installed on the Duo?

The SCSI port would allow the connection of a CD-ROM drive or an external hard drive. The former would have been useful for file transfers from a PC to the PowerBook Duo 280 on a CD (burn a CD-R in an ISO 9660 format at a low speed; keep all files encoded or compressed until on the Mac). The latter could be, for example, a SCSI Zip 100 drive (allowing more than 90 MB files) used together with a USB Zip 100 drive connected to a PC.

Does the dock have an Ethernet port as well? If so, it would be possible to connect the PB Duo 280 to one of the LAN ports of an existing router, thus making it possible to download files directly from the Internet. System 7.5.3 has all the required TCP/IP software. Merely a simple web browser (such as the text-based WannaBe at http://mindstory.com/wb2/) or an FTP client (like an early version of Fetch) would have to be added.

If you wish to set up a null-modem link, two cables can be combined (one Macintosh modem cable MiniDIN-8M to DB-25M and a standard PC-style null-modem cable DB-25F to DB-9F). The link is connected to the serial modem/printer port (not the internal modem port, if applicable) on the Duo and to a normal serial port on a PC. Terminal emulation software with file transfer capabilities would be needed on both sides. This could be the communications section of ClarisWorks or a program like Terminal 2.2 (http://archive.info-mac.org/_Communication/_Terminal/) on the Mac and HyperTerminal on a PC.

You're welcome! With only 1.44 MB floppies available, you may want to experiment with splitting and joining applications for the transfer of files larger than 1.44 MB. I have not tested HJ-Split (for Windows) and ChunkJoiner (for Macintosh System 7.x), but these two could apparently be made to work together (they are merely examples; there may be a number of other suitable utilities for cross-platform use). If so, a file (such as the 8 MB one mentioned earlier) could be segmented onto several floppy disks, and then transferred from a PC to the PowerBook Duo 280. A different pair of applications may work in the other direction. The archives at http://archive.info-mac.org/_Compress_&_Translate/ and http://umich.edu/~archive/mac/util/diskfile/ could perhaps be of interest to you. Good luck!