[UserNo777]

(fyi ... I posted this same question on mac-forums).

Hi. My brother has a PowerMac 4400/200. He uses MS Word, version unknown, but it was the version out around 1997.

He went to turn it on the other day and it wouldn't boot. He took it to a shop and they tried a new power supply and motherboard. Still doesn't work.

He had backups of some data on floppies, but the guy at the shop told him that it's so old, the new software that's out will not read his documents.

The guy also told him that even if he has MS Word from '97 on disks, the current Macs would not be able to run it, so he is basically stuck.

Is this true? I find it hard to believe that the data is sitting right there, but there's no way to read it.

Any suggestions?

[Cold Warrior]

That doesn't sound right. You can buy a USB floppy drive in Wal-Mart for cheap. Also, Office tends to be good at reading old formats.

[TETENAL]

Current versions of Word should be able to read his old documents without major problems. Maybe he might need to add a .doc extension to the filenames. You need to get a USB floppy drive to read the floppies on current Macs.

Classic Mac applications indeed do no longer run on current Macs. That information was actually correct.

[analogika]

Also, 9 times out of 10, if an ancient Mac simply won't boot but worked fine yesterday, all it needs is a new main logic board battery (3.6V, 1/2 AA size).

[UserNo777]

Thanks for your responses. I'll let my brother know what you have said.