Yesterday I think I wasted the day. I spent most of the afternoon on the computer. I would like to say it was on computer games. But, instead it was spent going through old computers and trying to transfer files in obsolete formats into non-obsolete ones. I finally knocked off the hard drive of the Macintosh Plus (20 years old), and the Macintosh Performa 6200 (ten years old). I wrote rather prolifically in my younger days, so there are quite a number of files. Unfortunately, I did most of my writing in a program called “Write Now”. That file format is no longer supported, so I have to work on the old programs to save the files in RTF format which the later Macs actually like.
Some of the transfers have been harder than others. A few files were written in Nisus in a newspaper style which has been impossible to maintain. Sacrifices have been made with format to preserve content. I’ve also had problems with multiple files existing. I sometimes find the same file existing on two different computers, and I have to figure out which one is the more recent.
It has been nice seeing some of the old memories. I even have works by friends that were buried in the electronic sediments. And now that I have two computers cleared, I can look at getting rid of them and reclaiming space. And not worry about moving them.
Then I started on the old floppy disks. (The Performa 6200 is the latest computer I have that can still accept a floppy.) Most of them had already been transferred to hard drives long ago, but I ran across the floppy that I kept a journal on. From April 4th, 1991, I kept a journal for a few months. All of it written in “Write Now”. Each day in its own file. It isn’t really critical to preserve them, but that feels like a cop-out attitude. I wrote it originally for posterity (I’m assuming) and it would be wrong to just toss it.
Mind you, it isn’t high literature. I would be tempted to store them in LiveJournal, except it doesn’t shed me in the most glowing of light. I would be about 17, in grade twelve at the time. A time when the average boy is hormones and stupid. The final line of the first entry pretty much summarizes it: “So far all I can say is that this diary is going to be very private.” So it is probably best if I keep them for myself.