MS Word on ER5 (5, 5MX, 7, netbook, Revo etc)

[ifor.evans]

Strange experience today.

I installed the XT emulator (XTM) on my 5MX (this will also work on netBooks, 7's and Revo's)

Installed DOS 3.3 ;-)

Next installed a free download from Microsoft of Word 5.5

Executed the setup.exe (took a little while to install). 1/2 hour later I was editing Word Docs on my trusty PSION ...

Anybody else tried this?

All seems fine and too good to be true so far ...


...Ifor

[MartinG]

Hey now that's a good idea! Generate native Word files on your Psion... Hmmm. :)

Can you give the URL for the free download of Word 5.5 Ifor?

I guess the next obvious one would be a DOS version of Excel... ;)

Martin

[ifor.evans]

Hi Martin,

Here it is

http://download.microsoft.com/download/word97win/Wd55_be/97/WIN98/EN-US/Wd55_ben.exe

I've tried this on my netBook as well ... it all runs nicely and in colour there.

It's a little slow on my 5MX but still a lot of fun.

If you have any problems getting the printers installed during MS Word setup (so strange to be doing that on a psion) give me a shout and i'll tell you how to get around it....

...Ifor

[MartinG]

Thanks for this Ifor - I'll go and play! :) Will report back in a few days on the forum if anyone else is interested...

Cheers,
Martin

[felace53]

Originally posted by ifor.evans
Strange experience today...

Installed DOS 3.3 ;-)

...Ifor

:confused: Where can I download DOS 3.3 ?
Is DOS 3.3 to be installed on Psion or on PC ?

Thanks in advance
Giuseppe

[ifor.evans]

The SIS installation file that comes with XTM installes a mountable DOS 3.3 DSK file on the PSION for you ...

You can get XTM from here

http://www.nb-info.co.uk/download.htm

[cangiante]

Originally posted by MartinG
Thanks for this Ifor - I'll go and play! :) Will report back in a few days on the forum if anyone else is interested...

Cheers,
Martin

ciao all!

sure I am interested especially in understanding how this system works if compared to "nConverting" Epoc Word files into .RTF ones.

moreover, any traces of a similar excel program?

[ifor.evans]

I'm currently hunting for a copy of Excel for DOS .... I've also discovered that Word 6.0 for DOS will run on the PSION under XTM

Unfortunately I can't find a copy to test :-)

...Ifor

[donkeyontheedge]

There never was an Excel for DOS - as far as I know it was Windows only (actually a port of Excel on the Mac!)

Lotus 1-2-3 should work, as should WordPerfect. I still have a LOAD of old DOS disks which I'm going to try and get going under XTM... (eventually)

John

[pthwaite]

Well, just tried it running Dos 6, and very good it appears too. A spreadsheet would be good and as I have a Dos version of MS Works, I might try and load that up.

Certainly as MS works had a spreadsheet it seems strange if there was never an excel format, but DOS was rather a long time ago...

Howard

[ifor.evans]

I don't suppose you could email the DSK file to boot from DOS 6?

I can only get DOS 3.3

[ifor.evans]

BTW I installed Windows 3.0 on top of DOS 3.3 ... It worked :p

Doesn't look great on the 5MX ... have yet to try it on my 7Book

...Ifor

[pthwaite]

Ifor I've sent you a private email.
Howard

[ifor.evans]

Pete, I was unable to get through on using email so I've sent you a PM

[ifor.evans]

This is ironic ...

MS Word (current version) no longer supports reading native MS Word 5.5 (or older) files ...

BUT

It will happily read Wordperfect 5.x and 6.x files ...

SO

To write documents on a PSION that can be directly read by a friend with a PC and Word

Use WordPerfect 5.1 running under Dos 3.3 under XTM

It works :-)

Probably too much hassle but it was fun getting it to work ...

...Ifor

[MartinG]

Just found a great little site for lots of old DOS programs (inc. WP5.1, Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS, MS DOS 6.6, MS DOS 5, etc.). Have a look at this:-

http://www.doslife.com/stuff.html

Martin

[ifor.evans]

Yep, that's where I found Wordperfect 5.1

...Ifor

[Spuddey]

This all sounds very interesting, and the thought of getting MSword working on my psion is attractive. However, can anyone give me an idiots guide to installing the XTM system on my machine?
I have had a look on the forum and found a file recommended by Mike McC, but I added this to the XTM file on the D drive and it says it cannot find the disk when I open XTM.

Do I need to do anything other than open the sis file and then add the file DRIVEA.DSK ?

Any ideas/help please?

[ifor.evans]

I'll have to make a few assumptions ...

You installed XTM using the SIS install file? Assume yes ...

If you installed it on the C: drive you will need a directory in the root of C: called XTM. In that directory you will need to place the DRIVE.DSK file (it it's not already there)

If you installed on D: simple replace the above references to C: with D:

...Ifor

[ifor.evans]

OOPS I meant DRIVEA.DSK

...Ifor

[Spuddey]

Ahh - the root of the D drive!

Funny how things work when you put them in the correct place!

Many thanks for your help.

[ifor.evans]

Yep!

The link posted above by Martin will point you in the right direction for the freely available copy of word 5.5

[Spuddey]

How do I install word? Can I copy the exe file across and open it on the psion or is there some wierd method of loading required?

[ifor.evans]

Simply copy the file across ... make sure you put it in a subdirectory e.g wrdinst becuase it's a self extracting zip file and will inflate to be a lot of files that you don't want in the root of your drive.

Once the copying is finished start XTM and then just change to that directory (change to the d: first)

i.e.

d:
cd wrdinst

then type
setup

Sorry to spell it out but I don't know how much command line DOS you know ;-)

...Ifor

[Spuddey]

The answer to your question - is not a lot!

I cannot get it to show me the D drive in Dos. I type in D: and it tells me it is an invalid drive!

Help!

[ifor.evans]

hehe ... not a big reader of manuals ey?

add this line to your autoexec bat that you will find in the root of the a: drive (I suggest you first copy autoexec.bat to the C: drive and edit it there using a text editor because the one included with DOS ain't pretty)

eredir d: epoc32\d:\

This will 'mount' your d: drive for you. One caution you will only be able to see directories whose name conforms to the old dos 8.3 naming standards i.e no long names with spaces etc.

Hope this helps

...Ifor

[Spuddey]

Manuals?

Many thanks, will try and get this to work tonight at home. Many thanks for your help to this point.

[ifor.evans]

Just in case if the look in the XTL zip there is a manual.pdf ;-)

Good luck :-D

...Ifor

[ifor.evans]

meant XTM zip install file

[Spuddey]

Got it working perfectly last night. Thanks for all your help and guidance.

[ifor.evans]

No probs ...

[ifor.evans]

Howard, have sent you a PM

[MartinG]

And just to prove to anyone that's interested that it can be done, here's screenshots of both Word 5.5...

[MartinG]

...and WordPerfect 5.1 working on my netBook!

Might have a play with Windows 3 next... ;)

Martin

[ifor.evans]

Hi Martin,

Windows 3.0 WILL install ... but don't try it on a 5MX the screen is just too squashed to see what's going on. Haven't tried it on my 7Book yet. (If you do post a screenshot?)

BTW how did you do those screenshots? Are they from the emulator?

Cheers

...Ifor

[MartinG]

Originally posted by ifor.evans
BTW how did you do those screenshots? Are they from the emulator?

Hi Ifor,

Nope, they're from my netBook itself. The classic Ctrl+Fn+Shift+S captures XTM screenshots to .mbm format just fine. Then used nConvert to make decent .gif's...

Cheers,
Martin

[ifor.evans]

Never mind, figured it out. Should learn to read manuals myself ;-)

Here is a screen shot of Word 5.5 running on my 5MX :-)

...Ifor

[Spuddey]

Hi

Have either of you got lotus 123 running? It tells me it cannot run due to a network problem. Any ideas.

I have also had works running.

Simon

[ifor.evans]

Hmm ... I get the same problem with 123 ... its looking for a 'network license directory'

This may take some investigation.

[Spuddey]

With regards to Word Perfect 5.1 how do I get it to set up to the D drive rather than the C which it seems to want to set up on?

[Spuddey]

Sorry found it!

[ifor.evans]

If anybody knows how to access that text menu that sits at the top of the screen in WordPerfect 5.1 ... I'd LOVE to know :-)

[Spuddey]

Ahh!!!!

I thought I was out of the woods, but it is nowing requesting me to load discs into drive A to allow the program to be installed - help!
I would much prefer to get WP5.1 running as I used to use it years ago and it is it would appear to be still readable by modern day versions of MS Word.

Any (further) help appreciated!

Simon

[ifor.evans]

I had this problem with Wordperfect. In the end I didn't bother with the install. I think this ZIP file was a ZIP of an already installed WP51 directory.

Try just typing wp51 in the wordperfect directory that you unzipped everyting into ...

Hope this helps

[Spuddey]

Thanks

Simple when you know how!

[Spuddey]

If you manage to access the tool bar at the top of the screen please let me know as well.

Simon

[Spuddey]

Hi

I found this link to an idiots guide to WP5.1

http://www.mdx.ac.uk/www/study/wp51.htm

It does seem to help when you read a manual after all!

Simon

[ifor.evans]

Great! Doesn't seem to tell you how to activate the toolbar tho'

:-(

[MartinG]

Seems to be something to do with the mouse driver. Press Shift+F1 in WP to play with the settings - however looks like these are hard-coded into the program so they don't work with XTMMOUSE.

:(

I still can't figure out why the ALT key shortcuts don't seem to work thought...

Martin

[RainKap]

Forgive me if I'm barking up the wrong tree; how about using Word 5.5 to save the file in RTF (which WinWord *can* digest)?

Best regards

[MartinG]

Perfectly possible Ian. Of course, you could equally use nConvert / 2Connect / etc. to generate an RTF file directly from EPOC Word... But that wouldn't be nearly so much fun! There's something rather nice about seeing MS applications being run on top of EPOC - rather than the other way around.

Best regards,
Martin

[RainKap]

Sorry I didn't make myself clearer; what I had in mind was a work-around to solve the problem that the more recent versions of MS Word for Windows can't make sense of Word for DOS files: use Word for DOS running on a Psion to load the Word for DOS file, save the Word for DOS file as RTF, then you can load the RTF file into Winword. Convoluted or not?

Cheers

[MickKi]

Hi guys,Originally posted by MartinG
Just found a great little site for lots of old DOS programs (inc. WP5.1, Lotus 1-2-3 for DOS, MS DOS 6.6, MS DOS 5, etc.). Have a look at this:-
http://www.doslife.com/stuff.html I read in the XTM .pdf instructions that it's worth packing up the 1.44MB diskette with as many files as one needs, to make efficient use of memory space. Does this include any of the above, or are applications meant to be installed separately? Which of these could/should/would one use on a 5mx?

Regards,

Mick

[MartinG]

In theory, yes, this would be an intelligent thing to do. In practice however, most of these apps. are bigger than a 1.44Mb floppy I think and hence won't fit... :(

Best regards,
Martin

[MickKi]

Thanks Martin,

If one has DOS partitioned on the PC hard drive, I guess the 1.44MB is no longer a limiting factor? I mean, does the boot up diskette need to be a 1.44MB diskette (physically) or can I create a virtual diskette on my hard drive? Will perhaps the emulator for some reason only see 1.44MB? :confused:

Regards,

Mike

[ifor.evans]

Your C: drive should be visible to you as a DOS drive. If you need more room and you have a D: drive that can be mounted too (see earlier post re eredir)

...Ifor

[RainKap]

Two things from this thread:

1. To answer my own question, having installed Word 5.5 I find that it has converters for both directions Word55<->RTF, which is very useful for dealing with "legacy" documents which are available only in Word for DOS format. I have gone so far as to set up a smallish (30MB) DOS partition on one of my PCs to run Word 5.5 and a few other legacy apps, including the famous Rogue :)

2. Mostly, you can configure any of the Psion drives to be accessible from DOS (I've done this for C:, D: and E: on my Series 7); there is the occasional wrinkle, however - I found that Rogue doesn't like writing its rogue.sav file to anywhere except the simulated A: drive. This isn't a great problem, because both Rogue and its data files are small enough to go into the spare space on the simulated floppy. Unfortunately, as far as I'm aware there isn't any reasonable way round the 1.44MB limit on the simulated floppy (it might be worth having a play with WinImage (http://www.winimage.com/) to see if that will write disk images bigger than 1.44MB...

Cheers