Hello Gene,
(He said 13 years later. :-) Hope you're still in the game, and that all
is well.
If this is still an issue, perhaps I can help. I just recently finished
writing a converter for old mainframe SPSS files. It was tested on files
from '73, '78 and '81.
If you still have some old VMS files that you'd like converted, I may be
able to adapt the software.
Chris Muller
www.mullermedia.com
On Mon, 23 Mar 1998 14:52:23 EST, Gene Maguin <
[hidden email]> wrote:
>List members:
>
>I would like to bring something to everyone's attention that I
>recently discovered while talking to a colleague and then ask spss
>technical support to respond. If this issue has been gone over
>before, I apologize.
>
>The issue was that data sets (i.e., save files) written by a vax
>mainframe spss package circa 1988 were reported to be no longer
>readable by the current version of the vax mainfraime package. While
>the problem for the specific user was eventually resolved, a third
>party had to be involved.
>
>This implies to me that spss is not fully backwardly compatible
>(something that I had kind of always assumed). Therefore, to
>protect ourselves and our datasets, we need to periodically open and
>resave any and all datasets that might be needed in the future, or
>save them in some alternate form.
>
>The questions I would like spss tech support to comment on are 1)
>which prior versions of pc-based spss produced data files that are
>no longer readable by 7.5 or 8.0? 2) What are spss' current plans
>for preserving downward compatibility of data sets produced by
>pc-based software? 3) In what form should spss data files be archived
>in order to maxmize the likelihood of successful access by some
>future version of spss? Should we, for instance, be preparing export
>files for longer term data archiving?
>
>A related question for tech support/product development concerns
>spss' plans for preserving downward compatibility of output (.spo)
>files. What specifically are the plans for preserving the ability of
>newer versions of spss to read 7.0 or 7.5 output files? What
>recommendations would spss offer to users who wish to preserve output
>files for access at some reasonable future time (e.g., five years)?
>
>Gene Maguin
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