ancient version compatibility

Laura Brody laura.k.brody at gmail.com
Sun May 12 21:12:13 PDT 2019


The key file and indexes are compatible (old style indexes, obviously). I
don't think that screens and reports are. It has prc tables. It knows about
export. No print code tables. It used whatever the Deskmate default printer
was.

Have fun playing with it.

Laura Brody

On Sat, May 11, 2019 at 7:14 PM Brian K. White via Filepro-list <
filepro-list at lists.celestial.com> wrote:

> Thanks much.
> That's about what I was hoping. At least, it's worth trying even if it
> doesn't pan out.
> They have an installation that they started as a kid on their dad's
> model II with deskmate 2, then migrated to tandy1000 / PC deskmate 3,
> and by now it's running in virtualbox on linux. Originally he was asking
> if there was a deskmate driver to print postscript to file, to
> eventually get pdfs... Only later it came out he's using filepro.
> Apparently he's been using the app for caving data all that time.
> Worst case I can whip up a little awk program to dump the key files into
> csv or xml or post into a mysql db.
>
> I have no idea what features filepro for deskmate had. Like, did it even
> have prc tables? The export command? Print code tables (such that I
> could supply him an hplaser one)? Could you print to file or print to a
> script of your choosing via the command field in printer config like you
> can today? Apparently the unknown version he has is new enough that all
> the data is in the key files.
>
> Until this question, I had no idea that Deskmate was a distinct OS with
> it's own executable format etc. I thought it was just a ui shell like
> DosShell, or Desqview which adds multitasking on top of DOS, but is
> still DOS runs DOS executables. But I figured the files might be
> compatible with the dos version simply because that's probably what you
> would have been porting from.
>
> Now I want to play with it just because it's so odd.
>
> --
> bkw
>
>
> On 5/11/19 7:47 AM, Laura Brody wrote:
> > As I recall, the data files would be totally compatible with the
> > DOS/Windows version of filePro. I am pretty sure that the screens
> > would be too.
> >
> > Wow, that was a long time ago....
> >
> > Laura Brody
> >
> > On Sat, May 11, 2019 at 5:33 AM Brian White via Filepro-list
> > <filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> > <mailto:filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>> wrote:
> >
> >     Here's a good one.
> >
> >     Someone on a facebook vintage computer group has a bunch of data in a
> >     Deskmate version of fp.
> >
> >     Anyone know if the files would be directly usable by a dos/win
> >     version, or
> >     would they need xfer like if you were going from win to linux?
> >
> >     --
> >     bkw
> >     -------------- next part --------------
> >     An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> >     URL:
> >     <
> http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/filepro-list/attachments/20190511/5002088f/attachment.html
> >
> >     _______________________________________________
> >     Filepro-list mailing list
> >     Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> >     <mailto:Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com>
> >     Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Subscription Changes
> >     http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
> >
>
> _______________________________________________
> Filepro-list mailing list
> Filepro-list at lists.celestial.com
> Subscribe/Unsubscribe/Subscription Changes
> http://mailman.celestial.com/mailman/listinfo/filepro-list
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mailman.celestial.com/pipermail/filepro-list/attachments/20190513/c1742f1d/attachment.html>


More information about the Filepro-list mailing list