Retreiving files saved with Time Machine on a different computer

I am trying to view files on my external hard drive that I saved from my Macbook Pro on an older Macbook that does not have Time Machine on it. Any folder I try to open is locked and I get a message saying it is empty. When I checked the backups on the original computer, they work fine. Is it possible to view these files on a different computer?

An older MacBook that doesn't have Time Machine would not know about hard links to folders. So, when you look in them, you don't see the linked files and thus it looks empty. TM uses hard links to keep track of files that have not changed. Somewhere, there is an actual file, but if it doesn't change, TM just puts a hard link in all the subsequent backups. Trying to dig through the backup, especially after changing permissions on the folder, will likely destroy the backup.
Perhaps one of the Finder replacements or Time Machine helper apps can understand the hard links to folders, but I'm not sure.

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