I wonder if learning proper use of vim motions would cover most of these use cases today :)
I think, and I believe it has been suggested to Robert J. Sawyer, that Emacs keys are very similar to WordStar in the use of cords (or prefixed keystrokes). WordStar has ^Q as a prefix whereas Emacs has ^x, ^c, and ^h, etc.
[edit] Add bit about Emacs
But in the end it's about efficient keyboard-focused controls and it seems for many WordStar was the first one that fit the bill.
(1) except inputs consisting of multiple keys at once; terminals don't detect keyup/keydown events. Maybe Emacs can do it, I'm not familiar enough to know.
I go read this every few years thinking maybe I should learn WordStar... Just like I should learn Emacs for Org Mode. Then I slouch back off to Sublime Text, Scrivener, and Word.
I still write drafts in fountain pen, though.
The Emacs learning curve is pretty terrible, but once you are comfortable with Org you can do all your writing there. There's a huge benefit to having the same configuration for text editing (Sublime) and document preparation (Srivener, Word).
Can't help with the fountain pen though. :)
It was, for me, the turning point from reading what I now recognize to be mostly trash (primarily very early 'Star Wars' expanded universe books) to instead looking for things that had real impact. Books that made me think.
Not everything he's written has been as good, but I read whatever this man publishes- even blog posts about old text editors.
I remember WordPerfect won because it could actually use accented characters in Eastern Europe.
The ctrl key and block commands are almost Emacs and the duble periods are the Org-Mode markup.
Some of the ideas were good, some not so much. But it’s really interesting to see how people compensated for stuff like the lack of context menus and selections and comments and whatnot.