VDOS is another stable alternative, which is also free. I ran it five years, or so ago to test some of my vintage software.
However, I can't say that it is as good as running software on Windows. Although you can shell in and out if I remember correctly.
I've got around all that by going a little further. Before 1998, when I started with Access all my programs were written in Clipper. Lately, out of interest I have been using Harbour, the Clippers replacement that also compiles to an EXE, which is a free download. I have updated some of my old Clipper stuff into Harbour and I've actually retro converted a couple of my Access programs. Which are fine. Different to use, obviously because none of the keyboard, mouse, keyboard stuff. But quicker on data entry I would say.
Harbour does not confine you to 25 lines X 80 columns, which is restrictive. (VDOS will only allow 25x80) I have created some screens with 60 rows and 224 columns in Windows without any issues as tests. As well as some smaller ones, But I'll often run 45 x 135 screens. Of course, if the program goes onto a different resolution than the one you have developed it on, then it automatically resizes. You can also link Harbour code to just about any backend but up to now I've only used dBASE and SQLite tables. Of course back to code writing but I've dusted off my own old program generator and updated it. From a data dictionary I can generate over 90% of the code in seconds for ten screens and over a dozen tables. Leaving just a bit of individualisation to do.
When I've run out of things to do on that, I'll probably issue some more of my Harbour software onto GITHUB or Sourceforge. MInd you, there are several GUI extensions that I've only fiddled about with. Harbour has many using it on Linux as well as Windows and some are doing Android phone stuff with it.
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