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I know of no converter for Professional Write that will convert Professional Write documents into ODF, or even MS Word 97/2000/2003.

The applications you're looking for are wordport and/or filemerlin. http://www.file-convert.com/products.htm

I'm not affiliated, but we've been using it for years to convert Professional Write, thanks to my dinosaur PHB, VP and Specification Writer.

It doesn't support ODF yet, but it will get your PFS:Write files ready for a converter that does. DISCLAIMER: only runs in a windows environment.

You mean PFS Professional Write? You can download version 3.0 here (first Google search--might want to look around for other versions). You'll probably have to run it in some kind of compatibility mode or VM if the option is available.

PFS Professional Write had built-in conversion to other file formats like WordStar and WordPerfect. Those should be importable into modern-day Microsoft Word.

Alternately, you can use one of the plethora of file conversion utilities available on the 'net. Here's one that claims it can handle PFS files.

Does this help? http://www.file-convert.com/a_pfspw.htm

Amazing as it sounds, I still have very VERY old data that goes as far back as 7th grade when I started using computers. I know of no converter for Professional Write that will convert Professional Write documents into ODF, or even MS Word 97/2000/2003. The only hope I have is that I can use strings to extract the text elements of the data.

Jeez! You that know when people say "Google is your friend" they're not just trying to be funny, right? Try these guys -- it's not free, but it claims to do the job. If you have a lot of data, they sell a product that will let you do the conversion yourself. How much are those old files really worth to you? Or, Microsoft has some suggestions.

The article talks about two very distinct and different problems--hardware and file formats. The author has a point about the hardware--if the media goes bad or if there is no way to read the data, then the data is lost. However, the author is completely off-base when it comes to file formats...

The author specifically mentions WordPerfect files. Bad example! The default file format in Wordperfect X4 (released in April, 2008) is the same as what was used in WordPerfect 6--which came out in 1993 (DOS and Windows). While I can't speak for OpenOffice or Google Docs, MS-Word can read those files (and WordPerfect 5.x files) with a simple File/Open. Excel opens Lotus 1-2-3 files as well. So, Word can open popular formats in use since 1988 (WP 5.0) and Excel can open some formats in use since 1983 (1-2-3 r1a). You can also buy programs like FileMerlin to convert old documents.

Frankly, when it comes to file formats, conversion apps will exist for a LONG time. For DOS apps, you could even go so far as to create a v/m or use Dosbox, load up your obsolete word processor (I miss "Leading Edge Word Processor"!) and copy/paste the text into Word or Notepad...

Image files, sounds, & videos are no exception... GIF has been around since 1987, JPEG has been around since the early '90s (opening those on a 10Mhz 8088 was slow!), and MPEG/WMV/AVI/Quicktime videos are easily openable...

Finally, the more people that are affected by obsolete files, the more interest there is in some way to convert the data... But don't forget that a LOT of the data is junk--do you really care about your 7th grade paper you wrote on Hong Kong in 1989?

http://www.file-convert.com/ff.htm

http://www.file-convert.com/free_trial.htm

You could get the software for free... on an unlimited free trial... which supports all the same formats as the full version but adds in spelling errors...
If it adds in different spelling errors each time then you could convert the file several times and compare the results to create an accurate file but would you trust it to be correct?

Or you could realise that if you have an archive of thousands of documents that you really want to be able to read you should be willing to pay for software. Yes, I know the idea of paying for things is abhorrent to many people, I, myself, hate paying for anything on the internet but if I had all my old love letters on a 3.5 floppy I'd pay the $10 dollars to read them.

A large archive should be ok with paying a few grand for this sort of software...
http://www.file-convert.com/fmn_pric.htm

http://www.file-convert.com/free_trial.htm

You could get the software for free... on an unlimited free trial... which supports all the same formats as the full version but adds in spelling errors...
If it adds in different spelling errors each time then you could convert the file several times and compare the results to create an accurate file but would you trust it to be correct?

Or you could realise that if you have an archive of thousands of documents that you really want to be able to read you should be willing to pay for software. Yes, I know the idea of paying for things is abhorrent to many people, I, myself, hate paying for anything on the internet but if I had all my old love letters on a 3.5 floppy I'd pay the $10 dollars to read them.

A large archive should be ok with paying a few grand for this sort of software...
http://www.file-convert.com/fmn_pric.htm

Costs money, but if you need it...
http://www.file-convert.com/onl_pric.htm

Please give me a link to a copy of the Professional Write 3 (PW) software app. for MSDOS 6. Yep, I had that very problem some years ago when I was cleaning my room and found several 5 1/4 disquettes which contained the .pw extension. No way to find the program.

Try this.