Re: AW ADB files

[dempson@actrix.gen.nz (David Empson)]

Steve Townsend <steve.townsend@rook.wa.com> wrote:

>     I have a few old AppleWorks Data Base files that
> were two big to save to one 5.25" disk, so AW:1.2 saved them
> to two disks --one segment at 135K and the rest with a length
> of what ever was needed to save the rest of the file.

Sorry to disappoint you, but an unmodified version of AppleWorks cannot
do this.

You must have been using a version which was patched with a third-party
utility that lets you split files when saving (I'm not familiar with
many AppleWorks add-ons, so I don't know which ones offer this feature).

You will therefore need the same third-party utility to load the file
again.  As this utility needs to patch AppleWorks, it is not likely that
the same utility will work with later AppleWorks versions (you would
need to get an updated copy of the utility, assuming a later version is
even available).

Your best option would be to load the file into the patched AppleWorks
1.2 that was used to save it.  You would then need to either export the
data as text (I'm not sure if AW 1.2 can do this), save it in multiple
files (by loading the file multiple times, renaming each in-memory copy,
deleting some records from each copy, and saving the result), or saving
the entire file on a larger volume (e.g. a 3.5" disk or hard disk).


In general, later versions of AppleWorks have no trouble loading files
saved with earlier versions.  The only exceptions I'm aware of would be
related to third-party add-ons (as in your case).

Going the other way, there are some cases where earlier AppleWorks
versions can load files saved in later versions, but there have been
major changes in file formats and features, so this is generally not a
good idea.  In fact, trying to load an AW4 or later database file into
AW3 or earlier will cause it to crash.

-- 
David Empson
dempson@actrix.gen.nz
Snail mail: P.O. Box 27-103, Wellington, New Zealand