Eric Meyer

You could do that. Another option: run a Linux VM and run it in that. But it will be considerably easier to run the DOS version of WordPerfect on macOS. This WPDOS page describes 4 different ways to run WordPerfect on macOS: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/sitemap.html 1. Use the vDos emulator to run WordPerfect for DOS. 2. Use the DOSBox-X emulator to run WordPerfect for DOS. 3. Run the freeware WordPerfect for classic macOS under SheepShaver or QEMU 4. Run the Windows version of WordPerfect via WINE. To which, from another comment in this thread, I would add: 5. Run an Apple ][ or ][GS emulator and run the freeware WP for Apple ][.

The death of the authentic web really chimes with me. I have an almost physical reaction when I occasionally come across a page that isn’t trying to sell me something, that is a labour of love. A month or so ago, I was trying to help someone retrieve some very old Wordpress for Mac files. I found http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos and was so touched, I sent the author a few dollars for a coffee

Similar with me for old non-naggy tech. I'm on an Apple Silicon MacBook Air but still often run WordPerfect 4.2 and DataEase 4.53 under DosBox (also Boxer is good but not tried it on M1 yet). BTW if you're interested in the nuts and bolts of running WordPerfect DOS in emulation, Columbia University (NYC) has a great site at http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/ which may even help fixing other DOS software issues.

Came here to post that link! Amazingly, WP for DOS still receives love from various users! http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/#reason WordPerfect for DOS, in the opinion of many knowledgeable users, is still the greatest program ever written. Some of its features have not been matched even by the latest Windows software, and its interface remains unequaled for efficiency and elegance. Its support for multiple font formats has not been equaled by any other program or operating system, and its support for multiple alphabets, languages, and symbol sets has only been equaled by twenty-first-century versions of Windows, Linux, and the Mac OS.

Corel seems like it's become a graveyard of old programs I used in the 1990s, like WinZip, PaintShop Pro and, amazingly, WordPerfect. And, of course, Corel Draw. Oh, and this September will be see 40-year anniversary of WordPerfect [1]. (Though WP for DOS only came out in 1982.) I wonder what their strategy is with this acquisition, since there must be some money in there still. [1] http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/chronology.html

There are some really great self contained pre-built SheepShaver OS9 appliances. I don't suggest building your own unless you need to. Columbia University offers this one: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html Direct download: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/Mac%20OS%209.zip You can have an OS9 VM up and running in minutes. These support networking: https://www.macintoshrepository.org/7751-sheepshaver-ppc-emulator-for-… https://www.macintoshrepository.org/15339-sheepshaver-package-by-james…

There are workarounds, e.g. http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html

There's a professor at Columbia University that has good prebuilt SheepShaver packages with OS 9: Mac: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html Windows: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9win.html There's not much in the way of third-party software included in these images, but it's a good starting point.

> "Microsoft is the king of backward compatibility." The thing is, this hasn't been true for a long time. At this point Wine/dosbox are far more compatible with old weird software than the current version of windows. For example, you can't run 16bit Windows programs at all on Windows. You even have projects like otvdvm, running wine on windows to support older programs (or dosbox, which I think everyone is a lot more familiar with). http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/otvdm.html The genuine article tends to be better while older platforms are supported, but at some point, inevitably, older platforms are dropped because supporting them costs money. When that happens, open source imitations end up with better support than the original.

There is an unofficial build of NTVDM for x64 Windows available: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html I wouldn't actually use it for anything but it is interesting to read about.

You might still be able to - check out "WordPerfect for DOS updated": http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/. If you want spreadsheets as well, Corel 1-2-3 works under dosemu at least (see https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/lotus123.html).

Pretty trippy. This requires a licensed copy of WordPerfect, which Corel no longer sells. They gave the rights to a woman who operates by email with the handle [email protected]: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/links.html#obtain

Lotus 123 for spreadsheets. WordPerfect for a different word processor. Bonus points if you start Word Perfect in full screen text mode. http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/wpfullscreentextmode.gif QuarkXPress for desktop publishing: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7360076 dBaseII for databases. Elite for games, but don't forget to turn off Turbo.

> http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/links.html#obtain Looks like they deleted the file ... now 404 not found...

Looks like there are ways of running WP DOS on Windows 10 64-bit with fewer layers of abstractions http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/64bitwindows.html

You can still purchase it, but it's a lot of hoops to jump through! http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/links.html#obtain There is still a community (apparently mostly paralegals) who actively use it and answer questions, e.g. http://wpdos.org and https://www.wpuniverse.com/

Lack of 16-bit DOS support in Win64 is a choice itself. It's not technically impossible, and there are third-party implementations of a 64-bit NTVDM (e.g. http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html).

Here is an 'easy way' that also provides simple transfer of files to / from the OS 9 VM: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html

They are in PCL. A viewer such as http://openpcl.sourceforge.net/ will work. On the Mac PCLtoPDF does a really nice job http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/pcltopdf.html

The SPOOL was updated yesterday with LEVELS. I have converted it to PDF like the others. It is an amusing chart for programmers to express their feelings with. PDF of LEVELS: http://www.scribd.com/doc/136676459/LEVELS GitHub Repo: https://github.com/cwales/cwales.github.com PCL Converter: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/pcltopdf.html

On OS X (Mountain Lion), I used PCL to PDF[1] and got the same output that gabrielgironda got[2]. [1]: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/pcltopdf.html [2]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5540904

WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Still the gold standard word processor. Alt- & Ctrl- keystroke macro libraries, and remapping any key as a macro: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/

This : winevdm http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/otvdm.html

When HyperCard returns in some fashion. You can run the version 2.4 on an old mac (MacOS9 or early 10) or an via an emulator. http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html This person pointed me to it. https://blog.alexseifert.com/2020/06/09/emulating-mac-os-9-on-macos-10… The solution is a pre-made instance of SheepShaver running Mac OS 9.0.4 that includes a number of utilities and other pieces of software. The ROM is also included and the whole bundle is packaged into a simple, runnable application for macOS 10.10 and above. That means, all you have to do is download it, unzip it, move it to your Application folder and run it. Mac OS 9 boots right up and you don’t have to do a thing otherwise. You can find and download this brilliant solution for free on http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/macos9osx.html. Apple (SJ) apparently didn't know how many in-house applications people built with HyperCard. Some were classified. Others were just proprietary. I wrote XCMDs with CompileIt and HYPERBasic (try finding that one ) that did fun things like plotting, and converting graphics to PDF (as text files). It was fun and rewarding. Discussions can be found below and elsewhere. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30138533#30146989 https://apple.slashdot.org/story/01/03/30/0312203/trying-to-save-hyper… I haven't found a clone of HyperCard that suits my needs. Would be nice.

Well it's here, but you probably have to join the group to get access: https://groups.io/g/dosOrCAD/files/OrCAD%20driver%20without%20bug I put a copy in one of my github repositories: https://github.com/jhallen/joes-sandbox/blob/master/pcb/orcaddrv.zip I think this is a description of what's going on: https://airborn.com.au/layout/vddtest.html Well this is getting really off topic, but it appears that you can run DOS programs in 64-bit Windows 10: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html https://github.com/leecher1337/ntvdmx64

Not natively, but ntvdmx64[0][1] and otvdm[2]/winevdm[3] work fine, albeit a bit slowly. [0]: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/ntvdmx64.html [1]: https://github.com/leecher1337/ntvdmx64 [2]: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/otvdm.html [3]: https://github.com/otya128/winevdm --- For those interested, Wikipedia says there's no native/builtin 64bit NTVDM due to > In an x86-64 CPU, virtual 8086 mode is available as a sub-mode only in its legacy mode (for running 16- and 32-bit operating systems), not in the native 64-bit long mode. ... > The NTVDM is not supported on x86-64 editions of Windows,[31] including DOS programs,[32] because NTVDM uses VM86 CPU mode instead of the Local Descriptor Table in order to enable 16‑bits segment required for addressing[33] and AArch64 because Microsoft did not release a full emulator for this incompatible instruction set like it did on previous incompatible architecture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_DOS_machine#Windows_NTVDM --- Personally, since Microsoft still releases 32bit builds of Windows 10, I just dual boot 32bit (~48GB)/64bit (~900GB) partitions and run the 16bit programs natively on an old Thinkpad.