john, thanks very much for the advice. i have access to FILM/VIDEO ARTS, to
whom I gave my old amiga, but they don't have a clue about conversion. But I
think what I'll try next is have them fax a file to me from their amiga to my
ibm and see if enough of the ASCII comes through so that I at least have the
text content (we're talking over 300 pages here).
In any case, thanks for taking the time to answer.
ingrid