Word 5.1a in Classic

L

linguist1

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I'm (still) a devoted user of Word 5.1a. When I type words into it (using Classic mode, of course), I often get multiple letters (the same character over and over), even though I type a particular letter just once. Also, there's a lag-time between keystrokes and when the letters appear on the screen.

Also, the first time I installed Word 5.1a, the icon came out okay (the W symbol appeared), but now, even though I'm installing the program from the same disk, the icon appears as a generic "A" (for Application)--it looks like the A that marks the OS X Applications folder. I've tried installing Word 5.1a from other people's disks, but I have the same problem.
 
The icon might be solved by the usual resetting of Launch Services and repairing Permissions. (Use some maintenance utility for this, MainMenu for example.) The input problem... I guess that's something that just wasn't ever solved. There was a plan for a carbonized version of Word 5.1a, apparently – see this: http://db.tidbits.com/getbits.acgi?tbart=07139 – but I actually have never heard of Word 5.1 X other than on that tidbits page... Would be interesting. I wrote my first two books in Word 5.1a (and MacWrite Pro, actually). ;) ...
 
Well, Word 5.1a works great for me in Classic. No delay or slow down, no multiple characters when typing, it just seems to work. I've been using Word 5.1a in Classic since Mac OS X Public Beta without any issue.

But, today's systems are quite a bit different than what I use and what Word 5.1a was designed for. With that in mind, lets look at this from the point of view of problems I've been seeing in Classic apps in general.

First, the icon. You need to rebuild your desktop... there is a button in the Classic preferences for doing this and should return the application's icon back to the original.

Second, volume sizes.

Most pre-Mac OS X applications were used to being big fish in little ponds. And as such, they tend to have... "self doubt" in the ocean size volumes of today's hard drives.

Honestly, anyone who wants a trouble free Classic experience on newer systems should consider moving their Mac OS 9 System Folder and all their Classic apps to a 2-4 GB partition or disk image. This includes, in this case, all of the Word 5.1a documents too (and I would suggest a 2 GB disk image if Word 5.1a is your main Classic app). Basically, try not to let Word see the ocean of your system, keep it in it's own little pond (as Word needs the System Folder, it needs to be in that pond too).

Also, you may want to keep Word's memory to under 16 MB (16384k), maybe even as low as 4 MB (4096k), which is what I have my copy set at. Some older applications don't actually know what to do with more memory, and will actually slow down due to having more than is actually needed.


Best of luck.
 
Thanks to both of you for the tips. And--wow, rebuilding the desktop worked! I wonder what happened to make the icon into an A in the first place.... Believe it or not, NONE of the staff at Apple support could help me at all. They seem to have only disdain for Classic applications.

About partitioning my hard drive--I'm not 100% sure how to do that; is there an easy way of doing that? Also, if I do partition the hard drive, will it be a pain to access my Classic apps and documents?

BTW, the problem with multiple characters appearing on the screen only happens when I'm typing fast.
 
I'd go for the .dmg-approach instead. Partitioning will either involve buying a tool for doing so on-the-go (iPartition) or reformatting the whole harddrive in order to create partitions with Disk Utility.
 
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