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Old bespoke - No Source!
#1
Sad 
I have inherited an old QBasic project. It's basically a posh calculator for estimating new product cost.

The folder with the .exe has .OBJ & .bas. 

The .bas seems corrupted or part compiled so wont open in Qbasic.

I have lots of data in .DAT files.

Two things I need advice on

How do I unload the data from all the .DAT files?

Is it possible to use what source I have to extract the data & formulae logic?
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#2
(03-26-2021, 12:58 PM)kelvinrp Wrote: I have inherited an old QBasic project. It's basically a posh calculator for estimating new product cost.

The folder with the .exe has .OBJ & .bas. 

The .bas seems corrupted or part compiled so wont open in Qbasic.

I have lots of data in .DAT files.

Two things I need advice on

How do I unload the data from all the .DAT files?

Is it possible to use what source I have to extract the data & formulae logic?

It might have been saved in QuickBASIC. QuickBASIC was the full product that Microsoft charged for, while QBASIC was a stripped down version that shipped with DOS for free. It saved .BAS files in a compressed binary format by default.

Find a copy of QuickBASIC 4.5, PDS 7.1, or Visual Basic for DOS 1.0 on the internet (they haven't been sold for 30 years, don't bother trying to buy them), and try to open it with one of those. One of them ought to work.

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As for the .DAT files, there's no standard file format for this kind of stuff. I'm guessing most programs would have just dumped their data structures into the file. Your best bet is probably to look at the source, copy the code that loads the data, and use it to write a program that converts it to an easier-to-migrate text format.
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