I am recording Doug’s account of our latest approach to obtaining the Apple ][ data here, for our own reference and the benefit of others who might want to do something similar. I think he says it better than I can.
“I talked with Troy Barkmeier in ITS, and he suggested a slightly different tack for the project. He suggested we move all the data and software programs to a modern computer (and showed me some ways to go about that), and then use an Apple ][ emulator to run the utility program and translate the data disks (which will be files on the modern computer).
Katherine downloaded and installed an Apple ][ emulator (Virtual ][), and got it up and running.
She also downloaded and installed a program (ADT Pro) for getting the two computers connected.
I brought over a Keyspan USB-Serial adapter and we loaded the drivers for that on the iMac. (We wouldn’t need this adapter if we decided to transfer things to a PC.)
I found an Apple Super Serial Card (SSC) in dead storage, along with its manual. The ADT Pro website helped us set up the DIP switches (which we did) for the initial transfer (which we haven’t done yet).
We still need a serial cable (25-pin to 9-pin) and we’ll have to figure out if it’s a straight-through or null-modem cable (there’s a HW switch on the Apple SSC that needs to be set according to the type of cable being used). Ill bet you have a cable that will work for this.
Tomorrow morning, we can try again to get the old and new talking to each other.”
-Katherine