st: How to read a very old SPSS file?

[<S.Jenkins@lse.ac.uk>]

I have a file which was originally written in SPSS binary data file format in around 1980 onto magnetic tape from which the file image has been taken. The original file was in EBCDIC format written by an IBM computer or clone thereof. I have also converted the file to ASCII format using UltraEdit's built-in converter.   I don't have access to any version of SPSS nowadays.  This is the only copy remaining of a historic data set.

I want to read these data into Stata (of course!). Tips please. 

Tried so far (using the ascii format version of the file):

* Stat/Transfer version 10 conversion failed: "Processing SPSS dataset dictionary was stopped because of the error (3)"
* SPSS version 6 (c. 1989): a former colleague tried reading with this and it failed 

In case it's useful, here is a hexdump from the file, derived using Stata's -hexdump- command:

======================================================
. hexdump iserdump1_ue.txt , analyze

 Line-end characters                        Line length (tab=1)
   \r\n         (Windows)              2      minimum        0
   \r by itself (Mac)                599      maximum   21,074
   \n by itself (Unix)             1,077
 Space/separator characters                 Number of lines    1,679
   [blank]                         2,964      EOL at EOF?       no
   [tab]                           1,749
   [comma] (,)                     1,260    Length of first 5 lines
 Control characters                           Line 1      615
   binary 0                    2,574,907      Line 2        3
   CTL excl. \r, \n, \t          252,933      Line 3      973
   DEL                               947      Line 4      525
   Extended (128-159,255)        106,948      Line 5      989
 ASCII printable
   A-Z                            99,890
   a-z                            21,142    File format   BINARY
   0-9                             8,824
   Special (!@#$ etc.)           142,054
   Extended (160-254)            231,999
                         ---------------
 Total                         3,447,297

 Observed were:
    \0 ^A ^B ^C ^D ^E ^F ^G ^H \t \n ^K ^L \r ^N ^O ^P ^Q ^R ^S ^T ^U ^V ^W
    ^X ^Y ^Z Esc 28 29 30 31 blank ! " # $ % & ' ( ) * + , - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5
    6 7 8 9 : ; < = > ? @ A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y
    Z [ \ ] ^ _ ` a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z { | }
    ~ DEL 128 E^A E^B E^C E^D E^F E^G E^H E^I E^J E^K E^L E^M E^N E^O E^P
    E^Q E^R E^S E^T E^U E^V E^W E^X E^Y E^Z 155 156 157 158 160 ¡ ¢ £ ¤ ¥ ¦
    § ¨ © ª « ¬ ­ ® ¯ ° ± ² ³ ´ µ ¶ . ¸ ¹ º » ¼ ½ ¾ ¿ À Á Â Ã Ä Å Æ Ç È É Ê
    Ë Ì Í Î Ï Ð Ñ Ò Ó Ô Ö × Ù Ú Û Ü Ý Þ ß à á â ã ä æ ç è é ê ë ì í î ï ð ñ
    ò ó ô õ ö ÷ ø ù ú û ü ý þ 255

======================================================

Thanks 
Stephen
-------------------------------------
Stephen P. Jenkins  <s.jenkins@lse.ac.uk> 
Department of Social Policy and STICERD/CASE 
London School of Economics and Political Science 
Houghton Street 
London WC2A 2AE, U.K.
Tel. +44 (0)20 7955 6527
Survival Analysis using Stata:
http://www.iser.essex.ac.uk/survival-analysis
Downloadable papers and software: http://ideas.repec.org/e/pje7.html


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