There is a VERY old box.
It is running dos.
On this dos box there sits a database that is used by a very old shop.
The data has 'fallen over' in the past week - they rely on the data and have never backed up - in over 25 years!
All their customer records are ONLY ON THIS BOX. There are no printouts for me to create something new - just the box and the data on it and two floppy disks which create a backup.001 file.
The database / program is written in COBOL 3.1.31
The majority of the program works, however the MAIN part has broken, the CUSTOMERS! Their names, addresses.
All the data is there, the files consist of the following formats; *.DAT / *.IDX / *.BAT / *.SRT / There is a BRUN41.EXE and the program works from a .EXE file, however, it falls over if you look at the CUSTOMERS records (the most important part).
There are four main CUST*.DAT and CUST*.IDX files - these files are the ones I need to be able to read, in order to create a new database for them. I am not a programmer, I would hope to create it in ACCESS for them. Their small business relies on the customer records files and I am trying to help them as far as possible.
Before throwing it out of the window (I am 50, my life as a young girl was using a BBC computer writing games - however, as I said, I'm not a programmer but I do remember DOS and it's all coming back to me as I am trying to retrieve this information but now I am stumped.
Please, could somebody help point me in the right direction as to how to extract the customer records for them?
Many thanks,
An old 80's girl
It is running dos.
On this dos box there sits a database that is used by a very old shop.
The data has 'fallen over' in the past week - they rely on the data and have never backed up - in over 25 years!
All their customer records are ONLY ON THIS BOX. There are no printouts for me to create something new - just the box and the data on it and two floppy disks which create a backup.001 file.
The database / program is written in COBOL 3.1.31
The majority of the program works, however the MAIN part has broken, the CUSTOMERS! Their names, addresses.
All the data is there, the files consist of the following formats; *.DAT / *.IDX / *.BAT / *.SRT / There is a BRUN41.EXE and the program works from a .EXE file, however, it falls over if you look at the CUSTOMERS records (the most important part).
There are four main CUST*.DAT and CUST*.IDX files - these files are the ones I need to be able to read, in order to create a new database for them. I am not a programmer, I would hope to create it in ACCESS for them. Their small business relies on the customer records files and I am trying to help them as far as possible.
Before throwing it out of the window (I am 50, my life as a young girl was using a BBC computer writing games - however, as I said, I'm not a programmer but I do remember DOS and it's all coming back to me as I am trying to retrieve this information but now I am stumped.
Please, could somebody help point me in the right direction as to how to extract the customer records for them?
Many thanks,
An old 80's girl