varchar limitation in MySQL

[Chagh]

hi all,
i want to migrate from SQLSerevr 2000 to MySQL 5.0.4. i've got a column type varchar(8000) in my source db. the reason of selecting varchar(8000) instead of text type is: we can't compare two text fields in SQLserver and i need to compare them some times.
i don't want to change my application and cause of mysqls limitation in up to 256 char in a varchar,So i can't use varchar.
what should I do in your opinion?

Thanks in advance
Chagh

[oraclable]

Values in VARCHAR columns are variable-length strings. The length can be specified as 1 to 255 before MySQL 4.0.2, 0 to 255 as of MySQL 4.0.2, and 0 to 65,535 as of MySQL 5.0.3. (The maximum actual length of a VARCHAR in MySQL 5.0 is determined by the maximum row size and the character set you use. The maximum effective length is 65,532 bytes.)

Ref: http://dev.mysql.com/doc/mysql/en/char.html