Can Classic run in Catalina...emulator?

I can give you the name, but not the URL. You are looking for SheepShaver. Unfortunately, any URL associated with that is also going to be associated with hackintoshes and the copying/sharing of boot ROMs. So I can’t give you the link.

However, if you poke around in the Issues folder on the SheepShaver GitHub site, you can find some links to 64-bit builds. I was able to get SheepShaver running on Catalina with some bugs:

I had to manually remove the quarantine flags with xattr -d com.apple.quarantine /path/to/sheepshaver. This build I tried isn’t signed so I had to right click and authorize it to run. But even with that, it still ran in app translocation mode. I had to remove the gatekeeper attributes or else it would create a new entry in the Security Preferences for input items and full drive access each time I ran. I still get a dialog for input access, but it seems to work fine, even if I deny input access. I did give it full drive access. I also manually copied my sheep shaver dot files from my home directory. The preferences tool (at least the one I have) is still 32-bit.

This is all assuming that you already have a working 64-bit version of Sheepshaver running on Mojave. If you don’t, then that won’t be anything I could help with. It’s not trivial.

You can do that with SheepShaver. My image even has WordPerfect. You would have to be able to install those apps yourself inside the emulator. That would likely be more difficult than just getting the emulator running.

I don’t know what you mean about disk images from UNIX or Terminal. Unknown files in macOS will often show up as a generic UNIX file, if that’s what you mean. You may be able to coax them back to their native formats.

Merl1n wrote:

That being said, I have a question: how could I get those files to open in their native formats? I tried opening up a word file, and all it gave me back was ASCII code :-(

Are there any programs that can perform this operation?

I don’t know if current versions of Word can open a Word document that old. That could be a Word 5.1 document or older. If it does open it, I’m sure you would have to probably click a box to show all files and then explicitly tell Word that it is a “Mac Word 5.1” document.

I’m generally not a fan of those “Libre Office” apps. They do a poor job of converting documents. They should be able to extract the text, but not much else. There is no substitute for having the genuine software.

But most Word users would have migrated their documents over the years, as Word itself progressed. For a time traveller like yourself, materializing your TARDIS in the middle of London 2019 with a bunch of Mac files from 1997, you are going to have difficulty.

It's shame that Apple doesn't seem to have backwards-capability in instances that require it (such as my case). We know WinTel does, but look at their issues

I’m afraid that backwards-compatibility long ago lost out over convenience and compatibility with other systems. Your old documents could be real old-school Mac documents with resource forks. Microsoft and <insert owner du jour> WordPerfect generally tried to support cross-platform compatibility and didn’t use resource forks as much as other Mac software.

But again, Apple did have very good cross-platform compatibility back in the century when more people needed it.

Try LibreOffice. It will open many if not all WordPerfect files.

https://www.libreoffice.org/

You will need assistance with Apple's Safely open apps on your Mac when authorizing LibreOffice v6.3.2.2 after installation. You can verify which older files are supported by choosing File menu : Open… and on that file chooser, click Options. Then, click the File type: All Files selector to see the long list of formats supported for all LO applications.

For Catalina, my last step in authorizing LibreOffice v6.3.2.2 was via System Preferences : Security & Privacy : General, where it will ask if you want to permit LibreOffice.

Earlier this year (2019), I helped a user automatically convert around 3000 Word Perfect documents into Word documents using LibreOffice. He reported that out of that quantity, only a dozen or so needed to be opened in Word Perfect on another platform for specific conversion purposes.

I don't have the older files to check. I guess you'll see.. At least it's free.

That depends exactly on what you want to run.

You can use a Virtual machine to run old versions of macOS. Look into Paralells, Virtualbox, VMware etc...

There are also a number of very old OS emulators you could use, you would just need to find one that is 64 bit, and emulates the OS version you want to use.

For instance https://paleotronic.com

I have running on an old iMac G5, Dataviz MaclinkplusPC. Converts to Word 97 from older versions of Word.