In the end, it all worked but didn’t have a valid license.

Some calls just pass through, but others need some translation due to differences in things like structure layout, sizes, and alignment.

wrote a small program to remove the old-style Unix system calls so they could be rerouted to Linux system calls. The old executables used COFF format but it is possible to relink it to an ELF file. The object file had all of its debugging information intact which shed a lot of light on the program’s internal operations. Apparently, in the days without dynamic loading, that object would be linked with plug in modules to install them. Luckily, a utility exists that can convert these to raw disk images. But he noticed something else in the BBS’s list of files: the long-lost Unix version of Lotus!Īn investigation found the installer used TD0 files which took some research. Turned out there was a hot copy of the SDK that he was able to use. eventually found someone who ran a circa-1990 BBS and had the data on tape. The $395 software development kit wasn’t very common and there was also a Unix version of Lotus 123, but no one seemed to have a copy of that. In theory, you could use it to add modern features to the venerable spreadsheet program. The whole adventure started with wanting to find the API kit used to add plugins to Lotus. But in this case, it is even worse since the software isn’t even for Linux. If you are a recent convert to Linux, you might not remember what a pain it was “in the old days” to install software. You can see the results in glorious green text on a black screen in the video below. has managed to get the old software running natively under Linux - quite a feat for software that is around 40 years old and was meant for a different operating system. Ever hear of Lotus 123? It is an old spreadsheet program that dominated the early PC market, taking the crown from incumbent Visicalc.

Lotus 123 download