WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
sfwriter.com
sfwriter.com
Then again he's also about a decade late with the next book
If you want output, Stephen King has used many processors, he doesn't care aparently as long as he can focus. Brandon Sanderson uses Word. The tool doesn't seem to matter.
(Recall the literal warehouses of papers related to projects in Kelly's book and Rich's memoir)
I always preferred WordStar to WordPerfect, largely because WordStar's keybindings were easy to learn and remember. WordPerfect, by contrast, seemed to require keyboard templates, a manual, a cheat sheet, and a certain amount of divine intervention.
I do recall WordPerfect masters being revered, if not more highly compensated, by the average duffer.
You can read an insider's story of WordPerfect by Pete Peterson, one of the earliest WordPerfect employees. The PDF version is freely available on his website (https://wepeterson.com/almostperfect/).
It has some. Getting rid of page breaks in the new Office versions is ... interesting, to say the least.
The Word argument is that its underlying model was always "stylesheet-based" more than "RTF escape code based" like Word Perfect was so relying on "Reveal Codes workflows" was an impedance mismatch and that you should really learn its Formatting Styles system (which is also why the Styles Gallery is the biggest section of the Home Ribbon since the invention of the Ribbon).
My long-running quarrel with WordPerfect was always the keybindings. I can still tear through WordStar, and anything wearing WordStar's clothes, like Turbo Pascal, Turbo C, or Joe in jstar mode, like an overcaffeinated chipmunk that's made a series of questionable but deeply committed life choices about caffeine.
WordPerfect, though. WordPerfect and I never achieved détente. I never managed to internalize those key combinations. This is, on paper, a personal failing. In practice, I continue to hold WordPerfect entirely responsible.
Not a full replacement for WordPerfect, but Pure has "Reveal Codes" (F9): https://github.com/roblillack/pure
Quite often solicitors have stuff on 3.5" or even 5.25" floppies that need read, converted from WordPerfect into something modern, and delivered as maybe a PDF or Word Doc.
Fortunately, solicitors tend not to be short of money (that they bill their client for) so they can often find "a guy who knows a guy" who can get that precious floppy onto a USB stick. Occasionally I am the guy who the guy knows, and it buys me the odd case of reasonably-priced wine.
Probably stuff to do with property ownership.
Last PC I saw in daily use with floppies in daily use was about five years ago.
Ongoing contracts (e.g. life insurance policies may last 40+ years). I did work for an insurance company once, and they had active policies started prior to 1940. There were electronic documents which dated back 30+ years.
While completed transactions may only need records for a few years, ongoing assets and contracts need documentation held for much longer.
You can just turn it off.
WP6.2 on DOS on a 21st century machine screams along. I run it occasionally under IBM PC DOS 7.1 (the FAT32-capable version) on bare metal and it's wonderfully rapid.
Each to their own, and of course finding an optimal writing environment is a very subjective thing -- but it's not like there aren't modern distraction-free writing interfaces that exist.
GUIs were invented by the Xerox PARC team early 1970s, the IIc (I have one sitting on my desk :) was 1984. Totally beside your point so I apologize. I only mention it because PARC deserves a huge amount of credit.
In retrospect the quality, quantity and look and feel of the documents I created remained exactly the same.
In the spirit of emacs-v-vim, I have to come down in favor of that other phosphor color of those days, amber. Better contrast !!!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard
https://www.wiseowl.com/articles/a2fpga-videx-01-the-card-th...
I don't think you did. AFAIK it never ran directly on 6502.
Perhaps under CP/M using the Microsoft add-on card that DOS creator Tim Paterson designed for them?
It's still early and I'm struggling to write more than a few lines at a time. Not surprising from how I've been commenting "witty" one-liners in comment threads for over a decade. I expect being able to write long-form with no backspacing will need a lot of time to learn.
But I want to take back my attention. If there's one thing I've learned in the last decade, is that one's attention is a precious resource and it's time to be more deliberate in how I spend it.
Only start editing when a substantial piece is ready. Clean up some wording, rewrite a paragraph or two.
Even then, don't overdo it. There is always something to improve, you'll never be done that way. Good enough is good enough, hit publish and go on write the next thing.
I'm not sure that I could work that way now, but it was more deliberate. Less 'drive by' thought.
"Our Writing Tools Are Also Working on Our Thoughts"
(I'm talking essays for University here not deathless prose).
I’m trying more and more to not spend tokens on things that don’t help (social media), etc.
I'm not sure how I would get my files I create off the device since USB support isn't really a thing.
Or just run joe as jstar and close enough, maybe? I use joe for mostly everything, but I never used WordStar (well, I ran into it once)
I think the below-mentioned Pocket 376 might have one soldered-on already.
groff file.troff -step -k > file.pdf
If any, check Groff with Mom macros, with does what you need with ease:
Online manual:
https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/momdoc/toc.html
For a quick command:
pdfmom -step -k yourfile.troff > output.pdf
- Install groff in Hyperbola GNU/Linux (or any other) if is not installed. It's mandatory in a 99% of distros but not Hyperbola.
- get https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/mom-2.6_d.tar.gz
- uncompress it
- copy om.tmac to /usr/share/groff/current/tmac/om.tmac
- cd to examples/ directory and do some tests:
pdfmom -step -k mom-pdf.mom > mom-pdf.pdf
It wasn't groff, or even Unix, or even a screen editor.
It was some RUNOFF clone running on NOS, using the XEDIT line editor.
But once you added the few commands you need (page size, margins, double space), it was just blank lines demarcate paragraphs and you're off to the races.
The advantage here is that one of the things that actual Wordstar brings to the table is formatting. Few of the other just "editors" offer that. (Notably, things like double space). I would not like to have to maintain double space text in a random text editor.
Since the text formatter dealt with word wrap and pages and everything else, I was just able to dump in raw text, not worry about formatting (at all), and just go. It's "OK" to have a line with just a single word on it, so using a line editor really isn't an issue. (Joining lines in XEDIT is kind of a pain in the neck.)
The teacher was kind enough to accept my papers from dot matrix printers on reversed green bar paper (cut to width, of course).
But, fundamentally, using simple groff is very capable for basic manuscripts without having to fall down a deep dark rabbit hole.
"To get your work off the key, just insert the key into a computer that's already running any more modern OS than DOS."
WordPerfect was great for doing lots of formatting it was so easy to make a signature for printing a booklet or zine.
I've been using Scrivener as my creating space. It is great at taking down words and organizing research. It just does RTF which is completely fine for my needs, but it is not a word processor or page layout program but that is not what it needs to do.
I'd rather use Word (ugh) or InDesign for layout. Separating the data from the display keeps things focused on what's important at the time.
One of my favorite sci fi authors btw - perennial Hugo nominee in the 90s/2ks, his lone Hugo win is for the amazing Hominids but he has many other great books. I’ve bought/read all but 2 - something I should go and correct before his newest is published and I’m 3 behind!
No. He uses WordStar 7 for DOS and made his own installable bundle of it and shared it.
https://www.sfwriter.com/ws7.htm
I incorporated it into my bootable DOS USB key:
https://github.com/lproven/usb-dos
He likes this and thanked me. :-)
Usefully showing end-of-line markers. I remember thinking compared to dec-10 ROFF (which iirc proceeded nroff etc) it was both simpler and harder.
Used it, never liked it. Ed was the way.
This was my first exposure to 2-step command combos (some call "chords") starting with Ctrl+K and then a second key.
I'm unsure if WordStar created this feature.
However, by way of Turbo Pascal, Delphi, Visual Studio and even VS Code, somehow this feature followed me into the present day for ~40 years!
I bet you never used Wang WP or Wang WP Plus for DOS :) That is what I used back then, WP+ was good but I liked WP original better.
I never saw WordSstar but Slackware comes with joe, which I hear is close to WordStar.
My dad brought home a circus of different PCs in those years. First a Sinclair ZX80 kit; a VIC 20; several Morrow Designs CP/M machines; Apple III, with a IIe emulator card; this interesting sequence terminated when he hit DOS/Windows and got stuck there.
He was a pack-rat too. I pulled a CP/M machine's terminal out of storage and used it with my first Linux PC in college. It turned out it worked with an "adm31a" (?) termcap entry...