Pro bono work: Macintosh StatView file conversion

by on Dec.20, 2022 , under uncategorized

Previously I posted about my pro bono service to rescue data trapped in old StatView files, but at that time I was only able to rescue data from Windows StatView. I wrote a lot more about it there, and I just updated the post today with this good news:

I finally figured out a system for rescuing old Mac StatView data!

I had to create a different type of emulator to run as a virtual Mac OS 9 machine on my current hardware, and this one is working much better than my earlier attempts ever had. I also figured out how to do some things I’d forgotten ages ago about those Mac file type and creator codes that need to be set. It turns out setting those correctly is also helpful. ;-)

So, all of a sudden, I was able today to rescue data for three different people, one who had been waiting over a year, as well as send a more hopeful email to a fourth researcher who had inquired.

I find this kind of work very rewarding. A lot of StatView’s (or more correctly, Abacus Concepts’) customers back in the day were doing medical and veterinary research, and sometimes data that they have long ago stopped caring about becomes relevant again, due to the scientific advances that have been made in the intervening time, so it’s pretty indirect, but I do get to make a tiny little contribution toward people saving the world sometime.

Soon there will be matching donations arriving just in time for the holidays at Doctors Without Borders, Wellbeing of Women in the UK, and more to come. If you don’t feel like reading that longer post about the service, the way it works is you make a donation to a worthy cause that we can agree about, in an amount that reflects the value of your data to you, and after you send me the confirmation for your donation, I send a matching donation from Global Pragmatica® LLC.

It’s a nice Hanukkah present for me to be able to do this little bit of tikkun olam (putting the shattered world back together, one tiny little piece at a time), and if I can help you with your ancient Mac StatView data too, please get in touch!