Recently, I learned the importance of keeping old files current, and why it's helpful to keep a working vintage Mac around. The school I work for was audited by both the state and Federal Departments of Education earlier this summer (we passed with flying colors, by the way). They wanted to see everything we could hope to show them, and many of the faculty and directors were pulling out research they had conducted years ago to satisfy their demands. However, none of the files could be opened. This is how they landed on my desk.I had folders upon folders of Microsoft Excel files...from 1989! Yes, these were genuine Excel 1.0 documents, created the year I graduated high school. Excel 2004 wouldn't open them, nor would Excel X, Excel '98, NeoOffice/J or OpenOffice. What's left to do? Call on a vintage Mac. More after the jump.
My first thought was to run them through MacLink Plus, but it doesn't support Excel 1.0 either (because, really, who has such ancient artifacts around anyway?). So I grabbed a beige G3 from the supply room, got it running and installed a copy of Excel 4.0. That opened the dusty, old files, and Excel 2004 had no problem with the files saved in 4.0 format.
Here's the lesson learned from this experience. While my story relates to a corporate setting, you could easily employ this strategy to your own home use.
- Keep you stuff up to date. Sounds simple, but it's easy to forget about files you almost never access. I've given the staff here a deadline for getting all their older files to me (many of which are on rapidly-decaying floppies). These will be converted, burned to CD, cataloged and stored. At home, you may have old photos, MacWrite files (it can happen!), WordPerfect files, etc. that you think you'll never use again. Trust me, you will.
- Archive as part of a formal routine. The CDs I've created will be updated on a regular schedule. Using Toast's "burn session" option, I can burn to a single CD-RW many times without overwriting what's already there. Go through your older files and convert them to a contemporary file format (provided that you can't use them as-is...but I'd still update) and either put them on CD, DVD or a removable hard disk. I like to have a hard copy, so I typically use CDs/DVDs for archives. Set up a repeating calendar event to remind you.
- Finally, keep a vintage Mac around! I was quite surprised to see the number of ancient Excel files that still existed here at work, not to mention old WordPerfect files, Clarisworks, Pagemill, etc. When contemporary conversion software fails you (like MacLink), you'll be glad you can open that old file in its native environment.
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
8-17-2005 @ 2:51PM
CyBeR said...
An addition to your list:
* Use open formats! This way, you won't have to keep around copies of old software to run on museum hardware after the vendor decides to drop support for a file format.
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 3:02PM
Gordon Werner said...
Thanks for the advice Dave ... I myself have been bitten by a similar problem in the past.
However, I think that the real blame should go to Microsoft. There is no reason why Excel shouldn't be able to open an Excel file ... regardless of the version.
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 3:03PM
narco said...
Well, I have two "vintage" (God, that makes me feel so old) Macs around. I have an 8100 I stole from the newspaper I used to work for when they closed down and didn't pay me, and I have the original bondi-blue iMac that my mom uses for word processing. I want to get rid of the 8100 (any takers?) but I will always keep the iMac around as it was the first (new) mac I purchased with my own money.
I learned this lesson a while back shortly after the OS X transition. I had a lot of old files and just assumed they'd all work in Classic. Needless to say they didn't, so I had to spend a couple days on the old Mac slowly converting things over. That was hard to do, especially seeing this brand new pretty OS for 10 minutes then having to continue to work on gross-looking OS 9.
Fishes,
narco.
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 3:16PM
Per Arne Flatberg said...
Thanks for a timely reminder. Open, well documented formates are still the way to go. Shy all Microsoft-formats. Many of us in Desktop Publishing have stories to tell about legacy Quark and Pagemaker documents as well. At the moment I would say that only plain good old ASCII and PDF/A are safe formats for long time archiving.
Another issue: You state that you update the CDs on a regular basis. I would recommend saving onto other media as well, as CDs aren't forever. Saving onto servervolumes and having good procedures for migration and upgrading the servers (as well as proper backup of course) is IMO a much safer method.
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 3:36PM
N. said...
2nd to last sentence: old WordPress files or old WordPerfect files?
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 3:42PM
John Stone said...
I still have a MacPlus around for the really old stuff Pagemaker v1.00 ! In fact I have three vintage Macs just to cope with Pagemaker and Filemaker old files, just in case.
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 4:25PM
Patrick said...
Print to PDF:)
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 6:37PM
Simon said...
Keep an old Mac around ...
Hey, I still have a working apple ][ plus with duo drives !
You never know when someone will pull out a 5.25" floppy !
(no pun intended)
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 7:15PM
Brett Berish said...
A FAR better backup strategy is to take your files, zip them and save the zip as 'Redhead lesbians.avi' and put it on Limewire. Give it time, your files will be backed up in 400 places!
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 7:57PM
Scott said...
Make sure to keep that old computer in good running order too. You wouldn't want to rely on it only to find it fried and unable to boot.
Take a page from teh *NIX guys and do a "disaster" recovery drill every year. That will point out the wholes in your backup and archive strategy, including file formats you should update.
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 8:29PM
Mauro Mello Jr. said...
And the best part is, isn't it great that we can still go back into a supply room somewhere, grab a very old Mac (if not really ancient Macs), start it up and go about using it without any problems? Try doing it with *that* other platform...
Reply
8-17-2005 @ 9:25PM
Geneffects said...
Don't forget about vMac. One can use that for all of their System 6 and 7 needs.
Reply
8-19-2005 @ 12:44AM
Bmwe46 said...
I had the problem but with photoshop, i have a computer with photoshop 3 with some pics i want, not a mac mind you, ive used the newer comp with adobe 6 i think it is, but the picture wont open instead it will say i need photoshop 3... how on earth would they update a software to make it not open older files? i can open it on the old comp, but its so old and on windows 95 that it wont even recognize my printers!!
Reply
8-24-2005 @ 4:44PM
tachijuan said...
There's a simpler way guys. Make sure that you keep your files in a media that is readable for a long time ( CD/DVD is good - floppy is getting to be bad). Then get yourself one of the software emulators out there. There are many for MAC's - sheepsaver, basilisk, etc. Keep those around. You will then be able to use your most current hardware to emulate the oldest hardware to run the old software. Far, far easier to do this and make sure that it's a lont term solution. Hardware eventually will fail - sofware is bits and if you are careful you can always make more copies of it.
Reply