My 83 yr old father needs to get programs off an old, old machine

It uses 3.5 inch disks and does not have a USB drive. He has used this machine for decades and has many Basic programs he programmed and uses all the time on it. The machine is dying. I gave him an old, old machine several years ago that runs a 3.5 inch disk and has a usb port but now the monitors won't work on that machine. He was once very astute at all this (he designed computers and has dozens of patents) but really can't handle this problem now. I would like to buy him a machine or external drive that he could attach to the old machine to transfer the programs to. He recently bought a new machine but he can't get the programs to the new machine.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

What is it -- or what are they?

Does he have kilobytes, or megabytes, or gigabytes of programs to recover?

It's a small amount of material because the programs were designed in the day when memory was very expensive (kilobytes). Machine 1 does not have a USB port.

I gave him an old computer several years ago from my business with a 3.5 inch drive. The monitor worked a few years ago. When he tried to run it recently, the output to the monitor did not work. He then tried a new monitor on the Machine 2, but that didn't work. The idea was to put the programs from Machine 1 on 3.5 inch disks, transfer them to this machine, and then transfer the programs and data to an external HD since it has a USB port.

He bought a new machine recently--Machine 3. The goal is to transfer the Basic programs and data from Machine 1 to Machine 3.

I would like to help him transfer the programs and data since I don't think he's capable of figuring this stuff out anymore :cry:

connect it to #3, and then copy the files directly to #3

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=2779&name=PATA%20/%20EIDE

But I asked for more detail since there are various kinds of hard drives and you would need the right enclosure

If you go with the usb card suggested below, make sure there's a free expansion slot in #1 and make sure the card you buy fits the slot

...be a chore unless you know what you're doing. The EASIEST way would be to buy a USB card and a decent flash drive (4/8 gig) ..
install the USB card (very easy) Copy the files on your Flash drive and Copy to new machine.

We'll walk you through it if you desire. The usb card and Flash drive would be under 50 bucks. :)

old machine and install it. Then I can use a flash drive. Do you think the old machine has room to install an internal card? I haven't looked inside it. I'm pretty clueless at all this but I have installed a few cards internally with my Dad's help years ago. I know he has any tools needed.

if he's willing to do this with my help. I appreciate your time and advice.

:)