Macintosh and IBM are computer industry partners now. For years Macintosh has co-existed with IBM as the second computer standard. How long should it have taken to allow files created on the IBM to be easily moved to the Macintosh? About until now. Apple has just released their System Software Extension Macintosh PC Exchange.
Apple’s strategy of selling system software is new (remember having to pay for System 7?). Their idea to sell incremental system extensions is new too. QuickTime is one such extension. Macintosh PC Exchange is another. This new strategy calls for users to buy system extensions from Apple as and if they are needed. You don’t need to talk with IBMs? Don’t buy Macintosh PC Exchange. Other additions will come out from time to time and perhaps be rolled together and issued in a reference release of the system.
Why, Why Why?
Many of us in the Macintosh community would just as soon the IBM computer did not exist. It has been the target of our laughter and dismay since the beginning of Macintosh. Remember the “Big Brother” and “Marching Lemmings” commercials of 1984 and 1985? At which computer system and its users where they targeted?
Well times have changed. Apple and IBM are corporate partners. Many Macintosh systems exist in the same office as IBMs. Your client may be using an IBM and expect to exchange data with you on your Macintosh. So the time has come for simple exchange of data.
From Whence We Came
For file translation, Apple has long offered the Apple File Exchange application, but it was a little esoteric and did not allow IBM disks on the desktop. It was nice partially because third party developers could write custom translators to be used between IBM and Macintosh formats. This was good but not great.
Many applications these days can read and write files in the format of IBM applications. The most obvious are those programs which exist in versions for both platforms such as Excel and PageMaker. Programs using the XTND file translation technology from Claris are very good at file exchange as well. MacWrite is an example of this technology in action. PhotoShop has long been used by graphics professionals to move bitmapped images from format to format.
But we still needed to mount IBM disks directly on the desktop. Third parties have done it and now so has Apple. Macintosh PC Exchange is a control panel and INIT that operates transparently to allow IBM formatted 720KB and 1.44KB floppy disks to be used in Apple’s SuperDrives.
What It Does
Macintosh PC Exchange is pretty simple in execution. You drop it in your System Folder (System 7 only, sorry), reboot, and it goes to work. PC Exchange allows formatting of IBM disks and desktop drag copying. The files look just like Macintosh files. They have their own icons, and you can do anything to them you can do to Macintosh files. PC Exchange does not work across a network; all files must be local.
When you insert an unformatted floppy disk or ask to erase a formatted one, you get a little different dialog box (it comes up a little slower too, wait for it) than usual. In addition to being able to format for Macintosh, a pop-up menu allows you to select IBM formats too. Double-sided disks can be 800KB Macintosh or 720KB IBM while high density disks are 1.44MB Macintosh or IBM.
File handling is anti-climatic. Renaming, moving, and deleting are all as expected. Nothing new to learn here.
Opening IBM documents
Getting IBM files onto your desktop and into you hard drive is no trouble; its a no-brainer. Opening those files could be a little more difficult and demands an understanding of IBM file formats, applications, and file extensions. The discussion below applies whether you are trying to go from IBM to Macintosh or vice versa.
Apple has left the responsibility for translating between file formats up to your applications. Macintosh PC Exchange leaves off after the file is accessible from the desktop. The problem here is that unless there is a Macintosh equivalent application, some kind of file translation must happen. For example, WordPerfect for Windows saves its files in its own special format, just as MacDraw uses its own format.
The easy part is if you need to open an IBM document with your equivalent Macintosh application. No sweat, for example, just use the Open… comment from your PageMaker File menu, and open the document normally. There are more Macintosh and IBM applications coming out every day. Many famous programs such as WordPerfect, Lotus 1-2-3, Excel, Autocad, and FoxBase are offered for both platforms. Even Claris will be releasing an IBM (Windows 3.0) version of FileMaker Pro. Will wonders never cease?
The next step in translation is a little harder. If your Macintosh application “knows” how to translate from some IBM application’s format, you can use it to translate for you. MacWrite II “knows” how to read WordPerfect for PC and RTF (a popular generic text format for IBMs) formats. In these cases, just use your Open… or Open As… commands from your File menu and open the document.
Life is much tougher if the format you need to read is not understood by your application. Sometimes you can use a “go between” application to make the translation. Imagery is a shareware program that translates between many different formats and may be able to handle your special case. PhotoShop is also very good at file exchange. The IBM application may be able to save its files in a format your program can read. Most IBM word processors can write RTF formatted text files as well as their own format. Some IBM graphics programs can write GIF format graphics files.
When there is no “go between” you’re out of luck.
Saving files in IBM format is pretty much the reverse of opening them. One area of possible trouble is that IBM file names are limited to eight characters plus three for the extension and cannot contain spaces. Macintosh names are much more forgiving. PC Exchange will mediate by changing the name to a legal IBM name when seen on IBMs, while keeping the long name for use on Macintoshes. It will also add files in RESOURCE.FRK directories invisible on Macintoshes. These directories hold the resource fork of any Macintosh file which uses them. They must not be deleted.
The Double-Click
But wait! We don’t want to open documents from within applications all the time. We want to just double-click the document icon and have the right application launch. Right? Macintosh PC Exchange can handle that too. But now you’ll have to know even more IBM lore.
Running PC Exchange gives you a dialog box to establish assignments between Macintosh applications and IBM document file name extensions. IBM files have a three character extension on the end of their names. They look like MYFILE.WK1 where the .WK1 is the file name extension.
In the PC Exchange dialog box you can opt to add file type assignments by clicking the Add… button. In the resulting dialog, you type in the extension of the files you’re interested in and click on a Macintosh application to open them. After the assignment is made, double-clicking the file will launch the program you selected. Files with the selected extension also show on the desktop with the icon for files belonging to that application. You must also specify the file type for the Macintosh application.
This file type business is unpleasant. When you select the application to use, a pop-up menu is available to select the document type. Unless you’re a programmer or veteran Macintosh hack, you won’t recognize many of these. The screen shot shows the types for MacWrite II. Apple recommends that you select the file type of TEXT if you don’t know anything else to try. The small manual accompanying the program lists several popular IBM programs and the proper type to select for several Macintosh applications.
Does It Work?
Fortunately (or not), I use IBM compatible computers at work and have several popular applications on them. We also have Windows. So I formatted a 1.4MB disk for IBM on my Macintosh and headed off to work to get some files. I tried some WordPerfect for Windows, Lotus 1-2-3 for Windows, and WordPerfect for DOS documents.
I used a disk formatted on the Macintosh as well as one formatted on an IBM compatible (a blazingly fast 80486-33Mhz machine with 8MB RAM, 200MB hard disk and 13" high resolution color monitor— all for $3200. But more on that another time!). Everything worked perfectly. I couldn’t trip PC Exchange up, regardless of my attempts.
Report Card
Macintosh PC Exchange is a smooth, Apple quality product. It does what it advertises very well. But I think it does not go far enough. Moving files from IBM disks to Macintosh disks is necessary and important. But exchange of data is more than just moving files. Apple has left the hard part — data translation — to the application developers.
Apple is not first on the block with this system approach to file exchange. NeXT workstations have been able to read and write the ibm format from the beginning. Release 3.0 of the NeXT system software, due this summer, can read and write Macintosh format too. That’s three interchangeable formats—IBM, Macintosh, and UNIX.
Perhaps there is light on the horizon, however. Apple has licensed XTND technology from Claris. If we are all lucky, Apple will use that to extend the operation of the system to allow truly system level exchange and translation of data across platforms.
The article above is reprinted from Mac Monitor, the newsletter of The Savannah Macintosh Users Group. It may be reprinted in a single issue of newsletters published by non-profit user groups. Payment shall consist of a single issue of the newsletter in which the article appears, sent to the following address:
