Very old version

Nisus Thesaurus, Nisus Writer Classic– this is the place for all other Nisus products.
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Chimerade
Posts: 3
Joined: 2008-02-05 13:16:09

Very old version

Post by Chimerade »

Hi, everybody,

I am new to this forum.

I bought a Macintosh LC475, with system F1-7.1 in march 1993. I think my computer is almost dead now (that is almost fifteen years of perfect work !), but I still can save files when it wakes up from its coma... At the same time I bought the computer, I also acquired :
NISUS WRITER
The powerful Document Processor
Licence : ###########

... for writing in chinese and japanese.

No idea what the version number was : maybe it was the initial version with no version numbering ?

Anyway, I am about to buy a brand new Macintosh and a brand new version of Nisus.

My questions are : How can I transfer the files to the new computer, knowing that the only possible output is 5'1/4 floppies ? Apparently, there has been no floppy disk readers for a long time on the new macintosh models. So, can I dream about an external floppy disk reader which would be plugged through an USB to the new computer, AND, MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION, will the current versions of Nisus (express or pro) be able to read those files created by such an old version of Nisus ?


Two questions in one ! Thank you very much to any response.
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Hamid
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Re: Very old version

Post by Hamid »

Chimerade wrote:AND, MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION, will the current versions of Nisus (express or pro) be able to read those files created by such an old version of Nisus ?
Welcome Chimerade.
Assuming your computer is still alive and you manage to get your old Nisus Classic files on to your brand new machine, there should be no major problem in converting your files. If your files have complex formatting, footnotes, bookmarks and cross references, to get the best results you will have to use Nisus Writer Pro, which has all those features and which easily converts Nisus Classic files. Both NWP and NWE application packages have a database of font names used in Classic documents and the expected languages and scripts which they represent. Remember that Nisus Classic files are plain text documents, so the simplest Nisus Classic files which have no footnotes can be converted by any Cocoa application. All you have to do is to specify, in the Open dialog, which plain text encoding was used in the Classic file.
Chimerade
Posts: 3
Joined: 2008-02-05 13:16:09

Post by Chimerade »

Thank you for your answer.
Hamid wrote: Remember that Nisus Classic files are plain text documents, so the simplest Nisus Classic files which have no footnotes can be converted by any Cocoa application.
Chimerade wrote: ...in march 1993...I also acquired : NISUS WRITER...No idea what the version number was : maybe it was the initial version with no version numbering
I do not know what you mean by "classic files". I thought the Nisus version I bought to be the first one, but after reading its story, I realized it certainly was not. On the other hand, my files are not "the simplest Nisus classic files". Most of the characters are japanese, but there is also some french typing (maybe you realized I'm french, due to my accent !), some tables, no footnotes by the way. I certainly doubt nisus files are just plain text files...

Anyway, I will try. But first :
Chimerade wrote: MOST IMPORTANT QUESTION, will the current versions of Nisus (express or pro) be able to read those files created by such an old version of Nisus
Well, you gave me the answer to this question. But in fact, it is not the most important one, it is equally important to the question : How can I transfer the files ?

As mentionned previously, the only output on that old computer is the floppy disk. No internet, no CD reader, nothing else !
But also, the new computer can read CDs, and can receive mails from Internet.

Consequently, I must go through another computer which will be able to read floppy disks : a PC ! But PC cannot read Macintosh formatted floppies, while Macintosh can read PC formatted disks provided that I go through the application "Apple file exchange". Now I have to select a number of options :
MAC_TO_MSDOS provides me with options "MacWrite to DCA-RTF", "Text translation" and "default translation"
The problem is that I have no idea of what these options do. It seems that whatever I choose, "Apple File exchange" will perform some changes on my file !!! If you happen to be familiar with this application, could you tell me if there is an option which means "do not change a single byte and just copy !" If such capability exists, then I can just copy my Nisus files to PC formatted floppies, copy those floppies to a CD using a PC, and finally feed my new IMac with this CD and let Nisus recognise those old files...

But, until now, I have a very complex procedure which :
1 - opens a file with Nisus
2 - export the file as "text"
3 - use Apple File exchange to store the text file to a floppy
4 - feed a PC with this floppy
5 - read this file within "Word"
6 - save to a RTF format
7 - copy the saved file to a CD
8 - feed the IMac with this CD
9 - ... and finally manually correct the errors happening when some -non japanese- characters where present...

And this for each and every file I want to save !

If I can find a procedure which will just "copy" the nisus created files onto floppy, then the procedure will be much much quicker, and I can a whole directory with one single operation !

Therefore, if you have the solution, please...

Thank you in advance
Groucho
Posts: 497
Joined: 2007-03-03 09:55:06
Location: Europe

Post by Groucho »

I think you can connect the two computers through an ethernet connection. Now, the problem is that LC's did not come with embedded ethernet. A card had to be installed separately. Maybe your LC has one that you are not aware of. Check on the back. It is a huge rectangular hole, about two inches across, over against the microphone port.
Also you can connect an old SCSI CD drive, if you find one, and burn a CD.
Again, as recently as 2001 Apple was selling an external floppy drive for the iMac. Maybe you can still find one, and for a fair price too.
I would take a trip through eBay, anyway.

Cheers, Henry.
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Elbrecht
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Location: Frankfurt, Germany

Post by Elbrecht »

Here is an official Apple list of floppy disk drives to get it done directly:

http://guide.apple.com/action.lasso?-da ... ml&cfc=709

good luck to you
HE

PS: in case the link above does not work from this Forum -
Copy and Paste the address into your browser manually...
MacBook Pro i5
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martin
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Re:

Post by martin »

Chimerade wrote:I do not know what you mean by "classic files". I thought the Nisus version I bought to be the first one, but after reading its story, I realized it certainly was not. On the other hand, my files are not "the simplest Nisus classic files". Most of the characters are japanese, but there is also some french typing (maybe you realized I'm french, due to my accent !), some tables, no footnotes by the way. I certainly doubt nisus files are just plain text files...
When we say "classic" files, or Nisus Writer Classic, we mean any version written for the "classic" Mac OS, eg: OS9 and under (any version before Mac OSX).

Even though your files may contain complex formatting/structures like footnotes/tables/etc, Hamid is right that in a technical sense that they are just "plain text". Classic files contain a "data fork" and a "resource fork". When a non-classic application opens one of these files all it can see is the data fork, which is the full plain text version of your document. That is, unless an application was specifically designed to read Nisus Writer Classic documents. Nisus Writer Pro is able to open Classic documents so that footnotes, images, tables, etc, from the resource fork are preserved.
How can I transfer the files ?
I'm honestly not sure, I don't know much about Classic. But if you want to preserve non-text content, you will need to find a solution that successfully transfers over the resource fork to your iMac. Perhaps you can use Stuffit or another compression utility to archive the files, which should preserve the resource forks. The process would look something like:

1. Compress all files on your classic mac into an archive.
2. Copy the archive to a floppy.
3. Transfer the archive from the floppy to a machine that burns CDs.
4. Burn the archive to a CD.
5. Copy the archive from the CD to your iMac.
6. Uncompress the archive and open the extracted files in Nisus Writer Pro.
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