orphaned B-Tree filer based app

[Stefan Andersson]

Hi!

You do have the BTree licence and Delphi?
The packages needed to read the BTree filer files can be downloaded from the
foundry and since you do have the record structure its just a matter of time
and rezising fields, voila its a Delphi app under windows. You declare the
record as packed and real as real48, the rest of the integer fields needs
adjustment as well, dont remember how...

HTH
Stefan

"William Lambos" <wala...@imagingetc.com> skrev i meddelandet
news:Xe2fFXIo...@tpsmail01.turbopower.net...
> Many years ago I wrote a custom DOS Pascal app (legal time and billing
> system) using Borland 7.0 and B-Tree Filer for a medium-sized law firm. I
> saved all the .pas, .exe, .dat, .ix and other files, but it was compiled
for
> Novell and that server no longer exists. Needless to say, the .exe does
not
> run on Windows XP/Win 2K server platform (generates an "unrecoverable
> network initialization error 10310" and aborts).
>
> Now the same firm tells me it needs access to the old program for a
> complicated tax battle with the IRS. Not only does the old Novell server
no
> longer exist, but I no longer have Borland Pascal 7 or any of my Turbo
Power
> products from the early 1990s.
>
> I have several questions:
>
> 1. Can the original app be made to run in a Win2K environment without
> re-compiling it?
>
> 2. Can the fileblock be opened in any other application? Can it be ported
> into Access, for example. I have the record layouts.
>
> 3. What else have people who find themselves in this situation done?
>
> Thanks in advance for any help.
>
> Bill Lambos
>
>

[William Lambos]

[Rob Roberts [TPX]]

William,

> 1. Can the original app be made to run in a Win2K environment
> without re-compiling it?

Sorry, but no. If it was originally compiled using the Novell network type,
you will need to recompile using the MsNet network type.

> 2. Can the fileblock be opened in any other application? Can it be
> ported into Access, for example. I have the record layouts.

You would have to write some type of extraction program to get the data out
of the fileblock and then convert it to some other format that you can
import into something like Access. You can't just directly open it with
Access or anything like that.

> 3. What else have people who find themselves in this situation done?

Many people are now finding themselves in the situation where they need to
port their old DOS apps that used B-Tree Filer to new Windows apps that use
modern SQL databases. In this case, it is necessary to write a program that
extracts the data from the old B-Tree Filer fileblock and adds it to the new
database.

In your case, you can probably convert the old DOS app to Delphi and then
use the new Delphi app to access the existing fileblock. Or it might be
easiest for you to just get another copy of BP7 and then recompile the DOS
app using the MsNet network type.

--Rob [TPX]

[Tony Wong]

Don't forget to change any integer declarations to smallint :)

"Stefan Andersson" <steffe.a...@bredband.net> wrote in message
news:Yx8KzbIo...@tpsmail01.turbopower.net...