Just a reminder that WINE [0] runs a lot of new and old Windows software pretty well, so that anyone wanting to consult the database could either load it either from a desktop Linux machine, a Linux VM, or even have it boot it directly to the database software since it can be easily embedded in a self booting Linux distro contained in a pendrive along the CD's data.<p>0: <a href="https://www.winehq.org/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.winehq.org/</a>
The Air Force Historical Research Agency should be contacted to figure out if it is actually important data. I would be very surprised if that old cd is the only source of this information.<p>edit: Reading the third paragraph here[0] it seems that all of this data is definitely stored at different museums and libraries.<p>[0]<a href="https://ww2truslow.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/burns-documents-8th-af-history-10.pdf" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://ww2truslow.files.wordpress.com/2018/04/burns-documen...</a>
"works only on Windows 98"<p>Pic is of <i>Vista</i> running on a HP DV6000.<p>Perhaps Vista was the last OS to have a 98 application mode.<p>He could do a Vista (or earlier) VM running on Hyper-V in Win 10/11 Pro (or hacked Home). If the WWII CD is ripped to an ISO, it'll mount like a CD.<p>Vista install ISO: <a href="https://archive.org/details/vista_x64" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.org/details/vista_x64</a><p>Windows 98 install ISO: <a href="https://archive.org/details/windows-98-se-isofile" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://archive.org/details/windows-98-se-isofile</a>
I don't see the discussion on Twitter as I have no account and do not see.the answers on Twitter, but don't you just need virtualbox?<p>CD-Roms are still there and the the underlying tech is also still the same.
Glad to hear people have reached out to help, but the sad thing is for every project like this there are a hundred more that die a quiet death every year. There's a universe of important and unique data tied to history and genealogy blogs, web databases, 20th-century software programs, and hard drive archives maintained by a single person.<p>One of my favorites: <a href="https://fultonhistory.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://fultonhistory.com/</a> (click on the "Go and Search My Archive" link). Tom has done an amazing job of scanning and posting old historical photos and newspaper archives, but will it last once he's no longer able to maintain it?<p>I often hear suggestions like "let Ancestry take them over" or "the Internet Archive is the solution." I have to ask: Will either be operational in 20 years, or the data on them as easily accessible as they are now?<p>Ancestry is currently operated by Blackstone, the third or fourth PE firm to do so in the past 15 years. Blackstone has no qualms with deleting services that no longer meet its needs (<a href="https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/08/ancestry-discontinued-its-world.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://scottishgenes.blogspot.com/2023/08/ancestry-disconti...</a>) or paywalling records and then jacking up the price every few years (<a href="https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/blog/were-increasing-our-monthly-subscription-prices-help-provide-you-more-content-and-new-product" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https://www.ancestry.com/corporate/blog/were-increasing-our-...</a>).<p>IA's web archive is a great resource, but it always seems to be begging for money and its founder's futile campaign against book publishers isn't helping.
1) Boot Access inside Wine and use it to export the tables into csv or similar. From there it's a relative doddle to import them into SQLite, Postgres, etc.<p>2) Use one of the open source Access file readers (e.g., Jackcess) to do the same. Make a backup first!
It looks like an application based on Microsoft Access.<p>Where I work we still occasionally use Office 97 with all the strange things it does to take over your desktop and that paperclip. It works just fine in Windows 10 and could probably open that database and see the SQL tables, it would probably not be hard at all to load the SQL tables in Postgres. I did a data import project for that kind of database and I am waiting for the QA people to tell me I did it right.<p>I do know I was unable to open the database w/ the current Office 365 and was told to go back and get the old Office.