Re: Appleworks format converter?

[mjmahon@aol.com (Michael J. Mahon)]

Paul Bramscher wrote:

>I converted basically all 400+ of my Appleworks files onto the PC.  But 
>interestingly there were two problems, requiring that each file be 
>edited.  First, the linefeed/cr issue.  There are freeware text editors 
>for the PC (Metapad) that'll convert to Unix or DOS format.  Second, the 
>Appleworks documents I had double-spaced were text dumped with double 
><cr>'s, so I need to write a macro to pull them out.  I wasn't expecting 
>this, since modern word processors don't typically double-space the text 
>when exported.

MS Word will automatically convert line endings when a .txt file is
loaded.  A simple "Replace..." of two consecutive line ends (^p) by
one accomplishes the conversion of "double-spaced" files to the
more conventional format.

I mention this because MS Word is so prevalent on PCs, and has
very powerful "replace" operations as well as fully general macros.

>Anyway, with regard to NASA, these organizations need to hire data 
>forensics people to save and convert this stuff before it's too late. 
> Of course it's always too late for some data, but it would be a 
>tremdendous loss to lose the bulk of the Mercury/Gemini/Apollo data for 
>example.

Twenty years ago, I noted that what you call "data forensics" would be
a big opportunity for consulting in the future (now).  There are many
ways to distinguish oneself as a capable practitioner--specialized
hardware (think 7-track), arcane documentation (all the proprietary
archive formats), and, above all, experience.

I haven't checked into how much of this is actually going on, but
it still apparently has a very low profile.  Perhaps most institutions
are simply throwing out old media on the pretext that the data is
"unrecoverable".  And even if they do recover some of it, perhaps
the situation is sufficiently embarassing that they do not want to
publicize even their success.

This would add yet another distinction for a successful consultant--
discretion.  ;-)

-michael

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