Eric Meyer

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-10-15/

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-hypercard-for-mac-os-x

I haven't found a clone of HyperCard that suits my needs.
Would be nice.

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

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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

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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.

> "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.

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 ][.

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.

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