Reading OLD Microsoft Multiplan files?

[C Wright]

Hope someone has a clever idea here.

I am trying to help a friend open a pile of old files he made with MS
Multiplan v1.0 on his Mac SE back in the late 80's. He's now running a
PowerMac w/ OS 7.6.1 (under which Multiplan cannot run).

I have tried various versions of Excel, Claris/AppleWorks, BBEdit (which
will open them - but only as gibberish with a few recognizable words and
characters).

I have tried Mac Easy Open up to version 9.x.

I have tried to use my own version of Excel 98 w/smart wizard importer,
but the data is apparently too bizarre for even the original author -
Microsoft - to decode.

I have actually managed to make the old 400k Multiplan disk into an image
and launch it with vMac (emulator) on my own 9500. I was then able to
export a few of the files (which I could open) into SYLK format and then
open them with newer applications. It was painstaking, and about 10 of
them still will not even load into Multiplan (I get system errors under
System 6.0.8 and multiplan crashes violently).

What, if anything, might deal with these few remaining files?

Microsoft's web site declines to admit that Multiplan ever existed...

Cheers,
Charlie

[C Wright]

Thanks to all who replied.

I probably didn't disclose everything I had done, as I already have an SE
that I began the project on. I actually found the the vMac emulator was
as stable as the real SE and made it much easier to move files around.
Open and Save (most of what I was doing when translating the files) is
much faster to a disk image than to a real old HD 20...

In any case, since Multiplan 1.0 for macintosh can't open more than one
file at a time, it's lots of old dialog boxes.

The problem I encountered that stopped me was several files that seem to
be corrupt. They crash multiplan on either the emulator or the real SE.
Since they check out fine as macintosh files with Norton and others - the
file format seems to be OK. I suspect corrupt internal data structures.
What I had hoped to find was something like MacLink Plus (or Excel) that
could decipher the old data and would be more forgiving of bad data at the
end of the file (bad EOF or some such thing). Multiplan just crashes -
boom.

The only way to translate the good files is to export them in SYLK format
from Multiplan and open them in something newer (like Excel). Multiplan
doesn' support complex things like tab-delimited text... ;-)

Again, thanks for all the help in any case.

Charlie