Re: Converting Apple IIe (PFS:Write) to Mac or PC?

[dg04@ns1.cc.lehigh.edu (DAVID GRUMBINE)]

In article <25t3gu$dcd@news.acns.nwu.edu>, triona@merle.acns.nwu.edu (Kelly Mads
en) writes:
>
>Since I both have a trusty Apple IIgs and a Macintosh, I do a lot of
>conversions for people who want to get their files to a Mac or PC. I had a
>gentleman hire me to do this, but the problem was that his word processor
>(PFS:Write) just simply couldn't do anything on my machine.
>
>First of all, I couldn't get PFS:Write to work at all on my IIgs. The
>program was originally written for the Apple IIe. Now, in my experience,
>most (but not all) Apple IIe programs work pretty much without a hitch on
>the IIgs. Any ideas as to why it wouldn't work? It got to the main menu,
>but the prompt was not legible and it wouldn't accept any input.
>
>But my real question is: IS there any way to convert PFS:Write files to ANY
>kind of format that can be translated to the Mac? (i.e. AppleWorks,
>ASCII...)

Well, I don't know exactly HOW PFS:WRITE stores it's stuff, but I do seem
to recall that the PFS programs were written under the Pascal system Apple
had.  I also seem to recall that Pascal was supposed to be the "official"
programming language for Apple ]['s.  Because of this, some copy programs
can't read the files at all (ie. Copy ][+ doesn't know anything about the
Pascal file system, although it can do a bit or disk copy ok on them).

There was a ProDOS Utility disk for 128k Apple //e's out a while ago that
could read all 4 formats (DOS 3.3, ProDOS, Pascal, and CP/M I think) and I
think it could convert these disks to other formats (Pascal -> ProDOS, etc.).
At least I got it to do a directory of the PFS:WRITE disk.  You might try
that.  Also, try slowing the ][gs down to //e speed.  This may help the
execution problems.

Good luck!
-dave
-- 

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The oppinions expressed above may or may not be my own.  But I'm not telling.

Physics is fun! ....  Honest.
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Dave Grumbine, Jr.       dg04@Lehigh.EDU