Amiga.org
Amiga computer related discussion => Amiga Software Issues and Discussion => Topic started by: ami_junki on December 05, 2008, 12:37:47 AM
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Well my Mac and PC finally packed it in, so I am now left with just my trusty A1200 until I can afford to buy a SAM (wife actually agreed if I don`t buy another PC or Mac ... woohooo!!) but this has been a very interesting experience, I have found that there is still an awful lot that I can do on my 030/28 4 meg A1200 that is no different from my Mac or PC ... except faster and more enjoyable. Kind of makes me feel all giddy inside when I chat to people on messenger and tell them its from my Amiga or emailing people. Huhuhu! One thing though that I need is a spreadsheet for OS3.1 and a word processor that I can save files to word format, what would you guys recommend?
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I recommend you get a PC (Windows, Mac OS X or Linux).
I do understand this is not what you want to hear, but if you need to be able to handle word and excel docs you will have trouble with AOS 3.1.
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Yeah I know what you mean, unfortuately I don`t have the money at the moment to buy either - so I need to figure out a way to use the Amiga for writing documents which can be read by word.
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Some amiga apps can save document as .rtf, word can open those.
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But there is nothing on the Amiga that will open later .doc files or the current .docx files. You need a PC, Mac or Linux to do that...
Open Office 3 opens .docx, .xlsx and .pptx files quite nicely, but I wouldn't hold my breath for a 4.1 port...
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Yeah I know what you mean, unfortuately I don`t have the money at the moment to buy either - so I need to figure out a way to use the Amiga for writing documents which can be read by word.
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Piru wrote:
I recommend you get a PC (Windows, Mac OS X or Linux).
I do understand this is not what you want to hear, but if you need to be able to handle word and excel docs you will have trouble with AOS 3.1.
Hell, I have trouble with some Word and Excel docs on my PC, because I don't have Microsoft Office and refuse to buy it. I have an older version of Wordperfect and also Quattropro, which can convert some files, but not others. But *really* why do you need to access such files? I often end up telling senders to send the files in a more universal (text) format and they have no trouble doing so. One should not be expected to own Word or Excel software, period. (My business has in no way been hindered, BTW.) -Dave
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Thats a good point, I guess also I can send richtext files as well. what is a good spreadsheet proggy for the amiga then?
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So what's exactly wrong with your Mac and PC? Pretty sure there is enough knowledge here to help you get them both going again quite cheaply if not for free.
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I had a lightening strike on our power lines and I think some how it shorted out the mac and pc which were on and plugged straight into the wall socket, after the strike the machines wouldn`t turn on. Figured well I have been really lusting after a SAM with 4.1 so maybe now is a good time, so while I save up for it I will use my A1200 for simple emails and doing some home accounts. To be honest I am kind of happy as it gives me a chance to push myself more for the SAM ;)
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amiga writer i think opened msword documents. from memory there is a word reader on aminet. finalcalc opens excel spreadsheets. ofcourse you are talking circa 1997 versions..
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i've got wordworth office at home, it is either version 6 or 7... not sure how compatable... if i think i'll have a look tonight and post what i find in here
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If you want to complicate your life (though I call it fun) you could always install a mac emulator and use one of the many word processors and spreadsheets available on the old 68000 apples.
They generally run slightly faster than a mac of the same amiga processor spec, although graphics will be slower on AGA than a real Mac ( though faster than workbench in the same colour depth, which is annoying).
I used to use photoshop on my amiga, back when I could not afford a mac for my graphic design course.
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You can run Linux on the SAM though can't you? So you can dual-boot it and run OpenOffice.org under Linux when you need it and AOS 4.1 for everything else....
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Abiword and Gnumeric under Cygnix on OS4 handle newer Word and Excel files well. A new version of Cygnix is in the works btw, with a promised general speedup of the system.
Varthall
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ami_junki wrote:
Well my Mac and PC finally packed it in, so I am now left with just my trusty A1200 until I can afford to buy a SAM (wife actually agreed if I don`t buy another PC or Mac ... woohooo!!) but this has been a very interesting experience, I have found that there is still an awful lot that I can do on my 030/28 4 meg A1200 that is no different from my Mac or PC ... except faster and more enjoyable. Kind of makes me feel all giddy inside when I chat to people on messenger and tell them its from my Amiga or emailing people. Huhuhu! One thing though that I need is a spreadsheet for OS3.1 and a word processor that I can save files to word format, what would you guys recommend?
Hmmmmm - back in 1998 I bought the "Final Office 97" package.
It does have "Final Writer", which is able to read and save .rtf-files.
Word is also able to read and save .rtf-files.
That's the way I did it in the past, when I didn't have a WIntel box with MS-Word.
"Final Office 97" also has "Final Calc" for spreadsheets.
But I never tested if there's a way to read and save .xls-files - maybe AmiNet has a converting tool or something...
Finally it has "Final Data", a database.
But I'm afraid "Final Office 97" is no longer supported and commercially available. Maybe you can get a copy on e-bay...
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:idea:
Is there electronics recycling centers in Japan?
For the mandatory Word, Excel etc. needs, a 500Mhz pentium2 & Ubuntu & OpenOffice is enough.
Fully working 500Mhz P2 machines with 20Gb HDD and 380M RAM cost 10...25€ here in Finland. And they come Ubuntu pre-installed & tested.
(I've paid 25€ for a full system and 10€ without a 19" monitor. 19" CRT displays cost 5...10€)
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A good word processor is Excellence! 3.0 if you can still find it. It had a companion spreadsheet program that was Lotus-123 compatible called Analyze!
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KimmoK wrote:
For the mandatory Word, Excel etc. needs, a 500Mhz pentium2 & Ubuntu & OpenOffice is enough.
Exactly what I was going to say! Here in NZ, older PCs like that are practically given away, or can be found for a couple of dollars at recycling centres.
PIII 800MHz or better machines are very common and have no problem running Ubuntu and OpenOffice, provided there's enough RAM. 256Mb is the bare minimum, 512Mb is nicer. Again, memory for older PCs can be had really cheaply from auction sites.
But... OpenOffice isn't just for old clunkers! It's a decent office suite in its own right.
- Ali
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@ami_junki
After a lightning strike your mac and pc are not necessarily totally broken. Sometimes you could get 'lucky' and it's only the power supply which received the blow. You can only know by replacing it. A pc power supply doesn't necessarily have to cost a lot of money, especially if the pc is a bit older and doesn't require too much current from the power supply. About the mac, I can't really say because I have no experience but the same thing goes, a power supply replacement might give a solution.
I worked in a retail computer store for years which also repaired computers, and a lot of my customers were from areas in the 'country' where lightning strikes are a more common occurrence to damage household appliances including PCs, so I have seen and repaired a lot of cases. Sometimes it's only the power supply(struck into mains power), sometimes it's the network adapter or modem(struck into the phone line). Of course I also saw plenty of cases where practically everything was dead. In my opinion there is a chance to repair the pc by trying to replace the power supply. Of course, sometimes there can be some hidden damage which only turns out later on but that only happened rarely to my repairs.
Of course, it's up to you if you want to have a try because there always is a chance that simply everything is dead, I just want to point out it might not be a lost cause. :-)
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Are there any CSS+Javascript capable browsers available for MacOS 68k?
If so, you may be able to run Google docs or something similar.
However, I'm afraid I have to recommend returning to the PC/Mac. Just head over to your local recycle store (HardOff etc.) and buy a used laptop. I purchased this Dell notebook for less than 30,000 yen and it works like a champ. I recently upgraded it with a larger HD, more ram, faster CPU, and DVD burner and it's performing beautifully.
Cheers,
James
x
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jmbattle wrote:
Are there any CSS+Javascript capable browsers available for MacOS 68k?
If so, you may be able to run Google docs or something similar.
However, I'm afraid I have to recommend returning to the PC/Mac. Just head over to your local recycle store (HardOff etc.) and buy a used laptop. I purchased this Dell notebook for less than 30,000 yen and it works like a champ. I recently upgraded it with a larger HD, more ram, faster CPU, and DVD burner and it's performing beautifully.
Cheers,
James
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Upgraded even the cpu on a laptop? Didn't think you could do that..
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Thanks for all your help guys, really appreciate it, I have had a think about it and decided for the moment my needs can be met with Final Writer and Final Calc, I am not really doing any heavy word processing, just preparing my CV and the spreadsheet is just for my home accounts. I thought about it and it seems that really I can get along fine with a SAM and OS4.1 ... the only stuff I use the PC for is writing music with renoise but that can run under linux on the SAM as well :) So I think this will be my chance to give it a try with the just the modern Amiga system. :) As long as I can send files to PC users and they can read my file then I am fine until next year when I`ll buy a SAM, gotta save those 1 yen coins now hehehe. Thanks again guys!
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There is also TurboCalc for spreadsheet. It was a competitor of FinalCalc.
As for saving documents from Amiga word processors to the Word format, this one is thoughy.
I believe there is a txt->word converter on Aminet. try to search "word conv" without the quotes. A better alternative is to make use of a file converting website. Some of them are compatible with Amiga browsers.
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KimmoK wrote:
:idea:
Is there electronics recycling centers in Japan?
For the mandatory Word, Excel etc. needs, a 500Mhz pentium2 & Ubuntu & OpenOffice is enough.
Fully working 500Mhz P2 machines with 20Gb HDD and 380M RAM cost 10...25€ here in Finland. And they come Ubuntu pre-installed & tested.
(I've paid 25€ for a full system and 10€ without a 19" monitor. 19" CRT displays cost 5...10€)
Local library here in Florida, US, has P4 1.5ghz machines with 60gig HD, 1gb RAM, DVD (dunno if it's a writer or what) for $50USD
Sorry for the derail.
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Has anybody mentioned .csv files for Excel transfer ?
If the sheet is not too complicated, then you should be able to save it as comma seperated variable (csv) type, which I guess most spreadsheet programs can open on Amiga and pc.
Give it a try and let us know :-)
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Yep, I went from a Celeron M 1.6 Ghz to a Pentium M 1.7 Ghz. However, using the FSB pin-mod the CPU is running at around 2.2 Ghz.
Cheers,
James
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It's hard to believe you can't find something usable for free. I end up paying to dispose of computer equipment for the school campus I work for because I can't find enough people to take free equipment.
Right now I have about fifty 17" crt monitors stacked up and will have more than a few 1 ghz towers to dispose of by the summer.
If there are any schools or gov't agencies nearby that cycle out old equipment, check with them. They may have perfectly good equipment just for the asking.
-JM