- Joined
- Dec 25, 2011
- Messages
- 10,552
As at least some of you know, I maintain a database of machines made by Atlas and AA, including in most cases the serial numbers and at least a guess at the year of manufacture. This is mostly from information supplied by owners over the past five or six years. A copy of the database is in Downloads. The database is in a dBase IV .DBF file. Until today, I was also uploading a copy that had been converted to .XLS, but it didn't get updated very often because for reasons that I won't go into, the conversion took several hours. Today, I learned that Microsoft Excel at least 2007 and later (and probably some of its clones) will directly open a .DBF for viewing. So I will no longer be uploading an .XLS version, which means that I can keep the copy in Downloads pretty much up to date as it will only take about 6 minutes to do the update.
For the time being, the .DBF and the associated .MDX index files names will end in .TXT because .DBF and .MDX are not on the approved file extension list. So to get a new copy, you first download the two files and then edit the file names by deleting the .TXT and saving. Then you can open it with dBase IV or later, Excel, or Access. I have requested that .DBF and .MDX be added to the extensions list.
For the time being, the .DBF and the associated .MDX index files names will end in .TXT because .DBF and .MDX are not on the approved file extension list. So to get a new copy, you first download the two files and then edit the file names by deleting the .TXT and saving. Then you can open it with dBase IV or later, Excel, or Access. I have requested that .DBF and .MDX be added to the extensions list.
