Hi,
I have a customer who wants to retrieve data from an IBM Wheelwriter 70, Series II, Model 6789 Typewriter 3.5 inch diskettes. I do not have any of these diskettes. I would assume they'd be a much lower capacity than the standard 1.4meg, and probably non DOS. Does anyone have any suggestions how such data can be retrieved?
Henry Mydlarz Melbourne Australia
Finding someone with a working Wheelwriter to print the files might be your only option.
I have no experience or otherwise of this company, but
in the US appear to offer data conversion services (they list IBM WHEELWRITER 70 SERIES II in their formats available)
Tim
Try downloading OmniFlop and using it.
Put on your seat belt before asking their prices.
Thank you for your advice, guys!
Henry Mydlarz
Most floppy WP machines were either DOS compatible filesystems or close enough to be able to read the files one way or another on a PC.
What you cant read in most cases is the formatting commands. They'll be there but are usually not compatible with any standard PC WP format. So you can get the text content off, but the embedded formatting commands generally end up lost.
Putting the flop in a PC will usually enable reading all the files. If lucky they'll read right. If semi-lucky you'll end up with bits of files tacked onto other files. If unlucky you'll need to copy the floppy .iso image and work from that. Always keep each floppyful in its own separate folder, as some files may have bits missing and attached to other files.
Once youve got your disc contents onto PC, 'Canopener' will strip what you've got of the junk, leaving just the text content. It often takes
2 or 3 goes to get the filter settings right.NT
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