Word 1.1a Reborn: Original 1990 Source Ported to Native 64-bit Windows

A developer has taken the source code Microsoft released for Word for Windows 1.1a — the 1990 release once codenamed Opus — and gotten it building and running as a genuine 64-bit Windows executable. Crucially, this isn’t emulation or a modern editor dressed up to look retro: the original C and resource files remain the authoritative implementation, and the shipped binary runs the actual Word application and its original behavior.

The hard part is bridging three decades of platform drift. The port replaces the program’s 16-bit x86 assembly entry points with fixed-width C/C++, remaps segmented and double-indirect memory handles onto an x64-safe native runtime, and adapts Win16 startup, messaging, graphics, file, and resource calls to current Win32 APIs. Original assets like command tables, dialogs, cursors, and bitmaps are regenerated by native host tools as part of a CMake build (Visual Studio 2022, CMake 3.25+). A test suite spanning unit, runtime, smoke, and automated UI workflows — typing, selection, formatting, dialogs, saving — guards against behavioral regressions, and the legacy assembly tree is kept as reference but excluded from compilation.

The work is a notable software-archaeology exercise, showing how a legacy 16-bit application can be carried forward without rewriting its core logic. One practical caveat: the repository has no top-level license file, and the historical files still carry their original Microsoft and third-party copyright notices, so anyone redistributing the source or binaries needs to sort out the rights first.