5 ms·

What does she use VMware for?

batoure 13y ago
she has been an avid user of PC Gourmet (Big Blue Disk 39) since the eighties. I have never been able to extract the recipes easily and she has been using it pretty much constantly for 20+ years so there are too many to do by hand. It worked ok in xp but won't run since windows 7/8 so ... vmware
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Is there any way you can get a copy of the disk to me? I'm interested in old file formats.
  - malandrew 13y ago
    Connections like these are why HN is amazeballs. You can make a simple comment and someone here will have a technical interest in helping you out.
- insaneirish 13y ago
  For the sake of everyone in your family, please back up everything in multiple places. That's awesome to have a snapshot of the culinary history of your family in digital format. When the time is right, share all the recipes!
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Runs pretty well on DOSBox - found Big Blue Disk 93 on cd.textfiles.com.
  - batoure 13y ago
    I could get it to run in DOSBox but couldn't get things to print right the way she wanted it to. edit: i now see that you found a version of DOSBox that I didn't find that has good printer support.
- voltagex_ 13y ago
  Sorry for the multiple posts on this. You sent me on a bit of an adventure: * Downloaded a modified DOSBox build with printer support from http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ (linked from DOSBox wiki so not too worried) * Mapped LPT1 in DOSBox to LPT1 in Windows * installed CUPS-PDF [1] on a CUPS server in a VM * shared virtual PDF printer via Samba to Windows * ran net use lpt1: \\vm.local\pdf /persistent:yes * printed from DOSBox and got [2] 1: http://www.cups-pdf.de/ http://www.cups-pdf.de/ (or apt-get install cups-pdf) 2: https://mega.co.nz/#!ehpxha4b!U2q9lhH2RoniPKucW862Y2qRxCgMJ6FCn_MPj3N1HG0 https://mega.co.nz/#!ehpxha4b!U2q9lhH2RoniPKucW862Y2qRxCgMJ6...
  - batoure 13y ago
    I will have to try this out.... the problem with extracting all the recipes... of which there are a ton. is that you are still in a go in print them one by one then parse the pdf. What I really wanted to do was figure out how to read the data files then pull everything into a db or something where I could do more with it.
    - voltagex_ 13y ago
      The file format looks whacky but not impossible to parse. Get in contact with me if you're interested in pursuing this further.

she has been an avid user of PC Gourmet (Big Blue Disk 39) since the eighties. I have never been able to extract the recipes easily and she has been using it pretty much constantly for 20+ years so there are too many to do by hand. It worked ok in xp but won't run since windows 7/8 so ... vmware

voltagex_ 13y ago
Is there any way you can get a copy of the disk to me? I'm interested in old file formats.
- malandrew 13y ago
  Connections like these are why HN is amazeballs. You can make a simple comment and someone here will have a technical interest in helping you out.
insaneirish 13y ago
For the sake of everyone in your family, please back up everything in multiple places. That's awesome to have a snapshot of the culinary history of your family in digital format. When the time is right, share all the recipes!
voltagex_ 13y ago
Runs pretty well on DOSBox - found Big Blue Disk 93 on cd.textfiles.com.
- batoure 13y ago
  I could get it to run in DOSBox but couldn't get things to print right the way she wanted it to. edit: i now see that you found a version of DOSBox that I didn't find that has good printer support.
voltagex_ 13y ago
Sorry for the multiple posts on this. You sent me on a bit of an adventure: * Downloaded a modified DOSBox build with printer support from http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ http://ykhwong.x-y.net/ (linked from DOSBox wiki so not too worried) * Mapped LPT1 in DOSBox to LPT1 in Windows * installed CUPS-PDF [1] on a CUPS server in a VM * shared virtual PDF printer via Samba to Windows * ran net use lpt1: \\vm.local\pdf /persistent:yes * printed from DOSBox and got [2] 1: http://www.cups-pdf.de/ http://www.cups-pdf.de/ (or apt-get install cups-pdf) 2: https://mega.co.nz/#!ehpxha4b!U2q9lhH2RoniPKucW862Y2qRxCgMJ6FCn_MPj3N1HG0 https://mega.co.nz/#!ehpxha4b!U2q9lhH2RoniPKucW862Y2qRxCgMJ6...
- batoure 13y ago
  I will have to try this out.... the problem with extracting all the recipes... of which there are a ton. is that you are still in a go in print them one by one then parse the pdf. What I really wanted to do was figure out how to read the data files then pull everything into a db or something where I could do more with it.
  - voltagex_ 13y ago
    The file format looks whacky but not impossible to parse. Get in contact with me if you're interested in pursuing this further.