new to os

[Lars Eighner]

On Thu, 18 Aug 2011, Al Plant wrote:

> Aloha Lars,
>
> You mentioned WP5 in this thread. I have some docs on disks that were created 
> in WP5. You know any FreeBSD based app like abiword that can read them for 
> transfer to a contemporary program?

I don't know of anything.  If I recall correctly, abiword could open such
files but made mincemeat of them - perhaps some progress has been made since
I last tried.

Since I still have my copy of WP5, I run it in dosbox and re-export file to
a more widely supported format.  This is subject to the limitations of the
time, so the conversion of special characters and formating is iffy and
tables are almost guaranteed to be a mess.  I believe there is a dummy print
driver for WP6DOS which prints WP6 documents to disc in pdf or ghostscript
which can subsequently be printed to paper (or converted) with modern tools. 
There might be something similar for WP5, but in both cases this depends on
having the original WP program to run in dosbox.

Since intellectual property puts meat on my family's table, I naturally
would not suggest that pirate copies of WP5 might be on the web somewhere.

-- 
Lars Eighner
http://www.larseighner.com/index.html
8800 N IH35 APT 1191 AUSTIN TX 78753-5266