My Father has an old computer with a database about ship wrecks he has compiled for some books he has written about the Florida Keys. He would like to give this information to he local libray for future researchers to use. The problem is the databases are in an old dos program called "First Choice" V 3.1 No one we have talked to can figure a way to convert this into a windows database program that anyone can access and use. Any ideas would be appriciated we would not like to louse this information he spent years compiling.

"Windows database" isn't very specific. Is this software now Dovetail? What are the file extensions? You may be able to export the data to another filetype that can be imported into a database program, but it depends on what you want to use. Filemaker Pro and Access are two good database programs, but they aren't free.

Life is more painless for those who are brainless.

Obviously you haven't tried Google. The first hit was a piece of software to convert PFS First Choice to various Windows compatible formats, price about $130.

If you still have a running version of the old software on an old DOS machine, there are various methods of exporting the data and importing/converting to another database.

thank you Wisard- fred. Not being a computer wiz like you I wasn't sure what or how to fraze the search. I was hoping that someone like you would know and tell me. My father will purchase this software and get someone who knows computers to use it to save all his hard work! again much thanks

If this database is consists of only one file, I would try other methods first. I think the price is a little high for a one time use. Since I have the old computer and a few utilities I would try other methods before buying the conversion program.

W-fred
The file is on an w98 laptop in dos.
the file is in C:\PROGRA"\FIRSTC"1\ and it is called "SAILCRFT.FOL" 2.91MB. There are other files but this is the only one He is interested in saving and converting. This laptop has no cd burner only floppies I have made a copy of the whole program on the hard drive, so if it gets ruined it won't affect the orginal.
I have no ideal how to proceed from here. As I have said I am dos dumb

You have only a little more than 2 floppies of data. It would be safer if you also copy the data and program to another computer. Since the program was originally written in the pre-hard drive era and used with 360K floppies, there should not be any problem copying the rest of the files. A file splitting utility could break the data file so that it would fit on floppies. If the laptop has email, the files could be emailed and received on another machine. Since it is DOS there are no registry entries.