Author Topic: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!  (Read 4212 times)

Adrian

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WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« on: January 09, 2026, 11:07:11 am »
Finally I've got wordperfect 5.2a for OS/2 working on ArcaOS 5.1.1
The golden tip was from Andy Mills, where he described that the max. amount of RAM should be less than 512Mb for installing wordperfect for OS/2.
A temporary RAM-disk of 2600Mb was created.
So, I made copies from my config.sys, os2.ini and os2sys.ini. (Tip of Roderick to avoid that config.sys was "toasted").
Choose for custom install if you don't want it installed in de root directory of your bootdrive.
Installation finish with no error code but no folders or program objects are created.
As a result a popuplog.os2 was created:

01-08-2026  16:11:10  SYS3175  PID 005b  TID 0001  Slot 008c
C:\TEMP\WPINST.DLL
c0000005
00010499
P1=00000000  P2=ffffffff  P3=XXXXXXXX  P4=XXXXXXXX 
EAX=00001a17  EBX=00005aa6  ECX=0002c44f  EDX=0000c416
ESI=0002ca94  EDI=0002ca42 
DS=0017  DSACC=00f3  DSLIM=0000ebff 
ES=0053  ESACC=d0f3  ESLIM=7fffffff 
FS=150b  FSACC=00f3  FSLIM=00000030
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=000f:00000499  CSACC=00fb  CSLIM=0000d811
SS:ESP=0017:0000c3f0  SSACC=00f3  SSLIM=0000ebff
EBP=0002c40c  FLG=00010246

WPINST.DLL 0001:00000499

I made the program object myself, ad the two created wordperfect directories to the libpath and path.
After removing the RAM-disk and reboot, wordperfect refuses to start, mowing that it couldn't find DDEML16.DLL, DDEML32.DLL and OS2SHCWP.DLL.
I was able to locate these DLL's and ad them to the wordperfect directories.
After that wordperfect starts and works.
Bit of nostalgia was recreated (snif).

Grts,
Adrian

Martin Iturbide

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Re: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2026, 04:33:51 pm »
Thanks Adrian for sharing this.

Please allow me to add your information in the OS2World wiki.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Adrian

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Re: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« Reply #2 on: January 10, 2026, 08:12:23 pm »
Thanks Adrian for sharing this.

Please allow me to add your information in the OS2World wiki.

Regards
Hi Martin,

Of course!
This forum is one big wiki, so please go ahead.

grts,
Adrian

Martin Iturbide

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Re: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« Reply #3 on: January 11, 2026, 02:50:11 am »
Thanks Adrian.

- https://www.os2world.com/wiki/index.php?title=WordPerfect_5.2a_Running_on_ArcaOS

If you want to add more detail or any other thing, just let me know.

Regards
Martin Iturbide
OS2World NewsMaster
... just share the dream.

Sabon

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Re: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« Reply #4 on: March 02, 2026, 08:07:44 am »
Finally I've got wordperfect 5.2a for OS/2 working on ArcaOS 5.1.1
The golden tip was from Andy Mills, where he described that the max. amount of RAM should be less than 512Mb for installing wordperfect for OS/2.
A temporary RAM-disk of 2600Mb was created.
So, I made copies from my config.sys, os2.ini and os2sys.ini. (Tip of Roderick to avoid that config.sys was "toasted").
Choose for custom install if you don't want it installed in de root directory of your bootdrive.
Installation finish with no error code but no folders or program objects are created.
As a result a popuplog.os2 was created:
Grts,
Adrian

Thank you for putting this up there. I used to use OS/2 in the 1990s and now that I'm retired I bought Arca Noae (in the past I had bought eComStation too and had OS/2 2.0 beta through Warp 4).

My disappointment with WordPerfect for OS/2 (and UNIX) is that it isn't ANYTHING like OS/2 for DOS or Windows but something totally, TOTALLY different.

I was a programming for 40 years and I am hoping to recreate something like the DOS version of WordPerfect. I used to write large scripts for WP (over 800 lines of code) for different things for work when I didn't have time to write C programs or whatever it was that they needed was something temporary and it was faster writing scripts in WP than it was to write C programs.

Too bad we can't get the source code for this because I would LOVE to start with the OS/2 version and go from there but that isn't an option.

Alfredo Fernández Díaz

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Re: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« Reply #5 on: March 29, 2026, 02:50:55 pm »
I don't remember whether I still have a copy of the installation files for OS/2-WP somewhere (I played with a beta -- did it ever go beyond that stage? big fan of WPDOS and its macro programming here) so no idea about licensing, etc. and I can't look right now. However, if the installation is broken and the program is of interest maybe we could release some script that would fix it, f.e. repackaging it as a WarpIN archive. The script would create the WPI from the installation files, and you would install normally from there.

Your thoughts?

Glenn

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Re: WordPerfect 5.2a for OS/2 working!
« Reply #6 on: April 07, 2026, 07:40:38 pm »
 It is weird you had trouble at the installation. IIRC I never had problems installing WP5.2a (I think I have or had two sets of floppies, don't know what was lost of that during some unfortunate house disaster some years ago, luckily I had made images..) but always had trouble running it properly. Whenever I try starting it, nothing happens and the popuplog.os2 has the following:

04-07-2026  13:20:49  SYS3175  PID 0070  TID 0001  Slot 00a4
D:\WPOS2\WPOS2.EXE
c0000005
000eeca8
P1=00000000  P2=ffffffff  P3=XXXXXXXX  P4=XXXXXXXX
EAX=00002534  EBX=00000004  ECX=0000000b  EDX=00000000
ESI=00003866  EDI=0000001e
DS=0000  DSACC=****  DSLIM=********
ES=0637  ESACC=00f3  ESLIM=0000f313
FS=150b  FSACC=00f3  FSLIM=00000030
GS=0000  GSACC=****  GSLIM=********
CS:EIP=053f:0000024c  CSACC=00fb  CSLIM=000026ef
SS:ESP=0637:0000eef0  SSACC=00f3  SSLIM=0000f313
EBP=0000ef00  FLG=00010246

WPOS2.EXE 00b9:0000024c
« Last Edit: April 07, 2026, 08:35:29 pm by Glenn »