Oakbog maintains
a large working
collection of Classic and Vintage Macintosh hardware
and software, both as the Vintage
Mac Museum and as a resource for old Mac file transfers
and conversion. Macs have been around for over two decades, and
lots of data still exists on floppy disks and old hard drives. 
Oakbog
can help read these disks, copy and transfer your files and (if
needed) convert old files from long moribund software into current
formats useable on modern Macs and Windows PCs - MS Word, Excel,
QuickBooks, etc. Oakbog's
proprietor Adam Rosen is Apple Certified Consultant and a
continuous Mac user since 1986!
The
Process
Supported media formats include floppy disks (400k Single Sided,
800k Double Sided, 1.44MB High Density), SyQuest, Magneto-Optical
(MO), Zip & Jaz cartridges, Exabyte tapes, Mac CD-ROMs, and
SCSI or IDE hard drives. The process involves transferring files
from the original sources to a work drive, then performing conversions
on the copied data. Copies may require the use of several different
Macs and drives depending on the condition of individual media.
Copying for data retrieval is best done at first opportunity once
the files are readable.
Once transferred
files can be converted to current computer file formats, most commonly
MS Office compatible. Batch conversion is performed when possible.
If not, manual conversions can be performed (Open, Save As), sometimes
requiring interim formats. Common older formats include Microsoft
Word, Excel, MacWrite, WordPerfect, FileMaker, QuickBooks, MacDraw,
ClarisWorks, etc..When conversions are complete batch renaming
may be performed to make sure file extensions are correct and any
troublesome punctuation characters removed.
For some examples
of this process, see Tales
of Old Mac Data Retrieval and the Vintage
Mac Museum Blog.
Cost
of Services
Billing is hourly. Total cost depends on the number of disks and
files to be transferred, if conversion is required, and whether
there is any difficulty reading the old media. Please contact
me to discuss details about your project. Oakbog
Ratecard (PDF)
