WordPerfect 4.x (DOS)

System

WordPerfect 4.x (DOS)

During the late 1980's, WordPerfect was THE standard word processor for DOS based PCs in big business. Under DOS, it competed mostly against Wordstar. WordPerfect for Windows enjoyed some success in the early Windows environments, but was quickly displaced by Microsoft Word for Windows. Later Windows versions were part of Borland Office/Novell PerfectOffice/Corel Office/Corel WordPerfect Office.

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SomeGuy

Hmm, I had the 4.1 versions marked as "4.1c". The text "4.1c" does appear in the executable, and I THOUGHT that at least one of the versions reported that, but it seems that is not the case? The start up screens on all of them say just "4.1". Of course, it seems it would have been way too much trouble for SSI/WordPerfect Corp to just write the version number on the disk labels.

SomeGuy

I've added WordPerfect 4.0 disk dumps. It turns out that second program disk is a specially built version for compatibility with IBM TopView. Although they call the disks "key disks" they do not appear to be copy protected. The 4.0 manual mentions that there should be a "Supplemental" disk, however I don't know if this actually shipped with all 4.0 sets.

ibmpc5150

World Perfect 4.0 consists 4ea of disks.

Program
Program 2
Speller
Supplemental


I think Program disk seems to be modifed by 3 files.

tarlabnor

According to the version string in WP.EXE, it's WordPerfect 4.0c

SomeGuy

Unless it displays 4.0c somewhere, I'm just going with "4.0". 4.1 also has strings with "c" but never displays that, so I'm thinking it is just some internal stuff.

tarlabnor

I'm thinking it is just some internal stuff

It definitely is. WordPerfect 4.0 had multiple builds (at least 2) as well as later (and maybe previous) versions:
www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/chronology.html