Hacker News Reader

Comment by zabzonk | Hacker News Reader

WordStar was a really good programming editor, if you put into text mode. I wrote a lot of C and assembler code using it back in the 1980s.

And it was a good word processor - much easier to get to grips with than WordPerfect, IMHO.

View on HN

I use JOE as my programming (and general purpose) editor, which is modeled after WordStar in a lot of ways. Once, I happened upon a WordStar installation and was able to use it just fine, because I already knew the concepts (I think the command prefix isn't ^K though, so it felt a bit off?)

Joe (or jstar) is my go to console editor.

Does it still save bak files everywhere though? I used it for a while and it littered folders everywhere with them as it doesn't clean them up. I tried turning it off but an update came through that changed something and turned it back on, and then I came across nano which felt nicer :)

I actually like those ~ files everywhere, because it makes for an easy and (almost) universal undo. But it does make a mess, and I understand why you might not want them. I would be surprised if you can't turn them off, though... and I'm even more surprised they came back after an update, I wonder if you set it in the system config and not a personal config, so it got overwritten when you updated; but possibly the config value changed names too. :(

That's very frustrating, and I hope nano treats you well.

To give an opposite opinion form the same time period. I found WordStar much more difficult to come to grips with than WordPerfect. WordPerfect 4.2 with a XT layout keyboard is by far my favorite word processor experience to date.

I could never get to grips with WP's use of function keys. In fact, I hate all software that uses function keys.

F7 to save.

Seriously, if I could still use WordPerfect 4.2 today, I would. I would put up with 5.1 if necessary.

The Linux version is freeware now:

https://xwp8users.com/

> The Linux version is freeware now

I can't see such statement on linked site; instead its clarifies to use "legitimate copy":

> This site provides information designed to assist an owner of a legitimate copy of a version of WordPerfect, who desires to use it on a current Linux distro, in doing so.

BTW, Here is Reddit thread[0] & screenshot[1] posted in comments.

[0] https://old.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/cgw9f5/using_wordper...

[1] https://i.imgur.com/mhZ4Ahm.png

It was released for free in 1998:

https://www.itprotoday.com/windows-78/corel-release-free-wor...

http://www.iitk.ac.in/LDP/FAQ/pdf/WordPerfect-Linux-FAQ.pdf

The free version can still be found out there:

https://tldp.org/FAQ/WordPerfect-Linux-FAQ/downloadwp8.html

> Seriously, if I could still use WordPerfect 4.2 today, I would. I would put up with 5.1 if necessary.

Have a gander here: http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/

It's all about how to (productively) use DOS versions of WordPerfect on modern Windows.

I love function keys but I hated the combos that WP used. There were just too many.

I was used to WP´s function keys; I don´t have much trouble switching between editors and word processors.

The thing that WordPerfect had that I still miss was ¨Reveal Codes¨, which would show you the exact placement and ordering of normally invisible codes (bold on/off, mark for index, hard page break, etc.)

Being able to see exactly what has screwed up your document´s formatting was a godsend. In MS Word it´s often easier to just recreate a document than to try and fix the screwed up formatting of an existing document.

I also dig the XT layout. I never tried my Model F XT with WordTsar though. I probably should!

XyWrite was the bees knees of that era, IMO. But far be it from me to make it a religious debate :-)

WordPerfect 4.2 (specifically that version) is to my mind one of the best pieces of software ever created. And amazingly it was written in x86 assembly language.

WordTsar doesn't do non-document mode... though I'm thinking about it.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com