Hi

[gg]

I'm glad to find this forum! My name is Gloria, and I have a beloved Mac LC that I haven't used for a long time and would like to find a new home for it.

But first I want to back up the custom chimes that I recorded a long time ago (sounds of kids as babies 17 years ago!!). Does anyone know what format the Mac sounds are in? I want to be able to listen to them on a PC.

 

[coius]

They should be just AIFF (Audio Interchange File format) which is basically an Audio CD Format. You can probable put then on Floppy and transfer it to a new mac, or format the floppy as DOS under the LC and copy the files onto it like that. Else, if you have a SCSI Zip drive, you can do that too!

 

[gg]

Thanks! I already saved them to DOS-formatted floppies but didn't know what extensions to use.

 

[techfury90]

No. They are not AIFF. You will need to find something to convert them, as putting them on a PC floppy will not work, since they are resource fork based.

 

[gg]

Do you know how I can convert them? I've been doing searches off and on for about a year now but haven't figured out the right search terms.

 

[coius]

Ah. my bad. I should have looked it up. I thought it was AIFF from what I recalled with a Performa 450. I musta converted at that time, as some of the sounds I have from that machine are in AIFF.

My apologies

 

[techfury90]

Do you know how I can convert them? I've been doing searches off and on for about a year now but haven't figured out the right search terms.

You'll have to run a program on a mac to convert them... its been a very long time since I've done it. But it cannot be done on a PC because of the resource fork.

 

[Scott Baret]

Your sound files that you describe are "System 7" sounds. Think of them as the equivalent to .WAV files on a Wintel box. (Analogy to use is System 7 Sound : PICT File :: WAV File : BMP File).

They can be backed up by opening your system suitcase and dragging them from the suitcase to a disk, etc (which it sounds like you did already).

To convert them: find a machine that will run SoundApp (it won't work in OS X). SoundApp is to sound what Graphic Converter is to images. (According to a page I found it should work fine on an LC). Make sure you get the 68K version. It's freeware and can be found easily on the web.

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Yes, these files are encapsulated 'snd ' resources. You will need a program to run on a Macintosh that will convert these files to AIFF or WAV files.

Try this neat little program to convert them:

http://www.versiontracker.com/dyn/moreinfo/macos/9833

You should copy the .HQX file to a PC-format floppy disk, then copy the .HQX file onto the old Mac's hard drive. From there, double-click the .HQX you just made in the hard drive. This should launch StuffIt Expander and expand into the real application you can use.

If your Mac says something about not being able to find a program to open the HQX file, let us know.

Open the program first (SoundConverter Pro) and select "Preferences" in the File menu. UNcheck "Downsample Sounds[...]" and "Convert Sounds[...]". Click OK.

Now, go back and select all of your good old sounds and drag them on top of the SoundConverter Pro icon. A message box should pop up. Select the top option (AIFF format). The program should proceed to convert all of your sounds into AIFF format. These new files can be copied to PC-format floppies and copied into a PC. You may have to add the ".AIF" filename extension for Windows to recognize the files.

Edit

Sorry, Scott Baret, I took so long to post this that yours got in before mine. There is a multitude of different programs you can use to make the conversion, we each just happened to pick separate ones.

 

[register]

If there was a way to transfer the Sytem 7 sounds to a recent Mac it would be convenient to open them with iTunes (which will play back System 7 sounds). On opening the files in iTunes a file name extension ".sfil" will be added. iTunes allows to export the sounds to AAC (which creates a MPEG4 file with the extension ".m4a"). Because of the original data file contains a resource fork iTunes on a Windows PC most likely will not handle the files correctly.

 

[gg]

Thanks, all, for your suggestions. I downloaded SoundApp and SndConverter Pro, but they're in .hqx format. I have Stuffit Classic, which only supports .sit files. I did a little searching and found something called binunpk which is supposed to unpack hqx files. It's .dsk, and my LC tried to open it as Simple Text.

Any tips on how to unpack the hqx files? I don't have a recent Mac to do it.

 

[coius]

hi, stuffit will unarchive .hqx files. Just open stuffit expander and have it do it through there.

 

[gg]

I don't have Stuffit Expander, only Stuffit Classic. I did find Stuffit Expander, but it's in .hqx.

 

[coius]

stuffit classic IS stuffit expander. well stuffit expander and stuffit compressor rolled into one :-/

 

[gg]

no good. I tried again just now and StuffIt won't recognize the .hqx file. I have v1.6, which was way before hqx files were around.

 

[gg]

I think my problem may be something else. I found StuffIt Expander for PC and unpacked the SoundApp_68k.sit.hqx on my WinXP. It created "SoundApp 68k" and SoundApp 68k.sit". I copied the unpacked files to a floppy and brought to kliobatra (my LC). The app files became SOUNDA~1.sit and SOUNDA~2. The icons were PC files. The .sit file couldn't be recognized by StuffIt Classis. The other file tried to load as SimpleText.

How can I transfer files from PC to Mac? I don't remember having this type of problem before, but it's been years since I worked on kliobatra.

 

[Scott Baret]

For a .dsk file you likely are looking at a DiskCopy image. You'll need DiskCopy 4.2, which I believe is available from Apple's website.

Mount the disk image, use the utility you got for .hqx files, and decompress it on the Mac. Now you've just got the .sit file.

Your version of Stuffit on the Mac is likely too old to support .hqx.

 

[heebiejeebies]

If the SIT files look like Windows files on your Mac and won't open with Stuffit, you could try going to the PC Exchange control panel and changing files with extension .SIT to open with Stuffit. Otherwise, you don't have ResEdit on there, do you?

Or you could always just hook up an audio cable to the headphones socket of the LC and record the sounds that way !

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Don't do the recording unless it's your last resort because you'll loose quality. We can get a perfect digital solution for you.

How in the world can we get a file from PC to old Mac without the ability to decompress archives? Any other solution I can find (i.e. SEA archives) require a resource fork... Does anyone remember how Stuffit Expander used to be distributed? I think we should find a better version of StuffIt expander for her so she can download whatever she wants with her PC and put it on the Mac.