need help with obsolete data base

[DMartin9N-2N]

Good evening:
I have several hundred items pertaining to (another hobby), all listed in a Microsoft data base, I think called "BASE". Unfortunately, it was not Microsoft Powerpoint. Does anyone have information on reading files from Microsoft's obsolete "BASE"? If I can find my printed sheets of data, I can be more specific. Thanks for any suggestions!

 

[Fawteen]

"Access" is a Microsoft database program from back in the day. Might that be what was used?

 

[DMartin9N-2N]

Thank you, Mr. Fawteen! I think that is what I used. If I can't find it on my older computer I have in my attic, then maybe there is no way to make a digital copy of my data (?). I do have one paper copy of my records, so maybe I can copy and save them just like they were a photograph. Thoughts?

 

[Duner Wi]

Internet says you can read .accdb files in Excel and save them as .xlsx. There are other ways too but that seems reasonable if you have access to Excel.

 

[MarkB_MI]

Maybe not a Microsoft application. "Base" could be LibreOffice Base, which is very much alive and well. Or it could be the progenitor of LibreOffice Base, StarOffice Base. What file extensions do you see? LibreOffice uses the .odb extension, while StarOffice used .sdb.

It might be the files were created in Microsoft Works, which used the .wdb extension for its database files. At any rate, the file extension should tell you what application was used to create the files, and you can go from there.

 

[MM-TX]

@MarkB_MI is on to it. Look at the file ending after the dot. Google what will open that file extension and go from there.

 

[Ken Combs]

Could be dbase, an early data base program. I used it in the late 80s on a Radio Shack IBM compatible model 2000 I think. File extension is .dbf.

Those ca n be opened in excel or similar or there is a dbf viewer available.

 

[MarkB_MI]

BTW, I think Windows hides the file extensions by default, which is really stupid behavior. If you don't see any file extensions, then there's an option (somewhere) to turn them on.