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If you're like me and grew up using pseudo-Wordstar keybindings (me by way of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C) you may appreciate JOE: https://github.com/joe-editor/joe
More to the point and much more complete, WordTsar:
These programs are great for sitting down and writing with no distractions, but if you have a setup with directories full of word docs, text files, various graphics, even excel sheets all related to what you are working on that you need to refer to and cross-reference, they are less useful than an older version of Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice. And they are difficult to export, share... there's a reason we don't use typewriters anymore, or DOS programs whose output is confined within a single program.
That looks like a different type of writing, perhaps research or business writing. Wordstar like editors that bring simplicity and a distraction free environment are best suited for creative writing.
Back then we were far less shy about printing things.
I still like to start the first draft of anything substantial by moving to a single screen, opening FreeDOS, maximizing the window, and typing in Wordstar as if it were 1987. Hell, sometimes I'll even put on a nylon windbreaker.
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 learned to love WordPerfect. I still miss the ability to "Reveal Codes" and see exactly where it had placed the non-printing codes to turn on/off bold, italics, to change margins, etc. When MS Word screws your entire document's formatting by typing a single letter, or moves stuff around the page seemingly randomly, your only option is to undo or reload the document.
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/).
> 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.
In the same way as WordStar, there's a community of DOS WordPerfect 6.0 users who claim with some validity that it's still the best for writing prose
In the UK at least it crops up a lot in legal circles.
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.
That would be 5.1. The 6.0 graphic mode just gets in the way.
I grew up using WordStar on the Apple ][. It was great when all you had was an 80 column card, a green phosphor screen and a keyboard, but I was never sad to leave it behind when GUIs were invented. I have nostalgia for the time, sure, but not for that interface and the multi-key-stroke commands you had to learn by rote.
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.
AFAIK, WordStar never ran directly on the Apple II. You must've had a CP/M card, probably the Microsoft Z-80 SoftCard. And I'll bet that 80 column card was a Videx. I eventually switched from WordStar to AppleWorks. Somehow, I never used Apple Writer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard
https://www.wiseowl.com/articles/a2fpga-videx-01-the-card-th...
I remember being quite excited at moving from a DOS based word processor (Word Perfect) to a GUI based one (Word). It looked like a step up.
In retrospect the quality, quantity and look and feel of the documents I created remained exactly the same.
> leave it behind when GUIs were invented
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.
> I grew up using WordStar on the Apple ][.
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?
> a green phosphor screen
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 !!!
I started getting into typewriters. I could've repurposed an old X230 and disable/remove the network card physically. But I also wanted to stop staring at a screen when writing, so I gave the typewriter a try.
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.
I got back to writing longer texts by mentally separating writing and editing. When writing, just write. Even when you think the paragraph could be better, keep on writing.
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.
Reaching back decades, I used to do a first draft longhand on file paper, cross bits out, rewrite bits. Then bang it out on a typewriter. Then once over with a red pen the next day, and a complete re-type.
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).
Attention is like a limited amount, you start the day with 100 tokens, scrolling tick-tock for an hour? 25 tokens, deep working for an hour? 25 tokens - what do you have left to do and how many tokens does it take?
I’m trying more and more to not spend tokens on things that don’t help (social media), etc.
Interesting that the guy who wrote the article is an award-winning science fiction writer and also the author of FlashForward. They even made a TV series based on it.
I've long considered getting a netbook, slapping freedos on it and running WordStar or WordPerfect as a writing deck.
I'm not sure how I would get my files I create off the device since USB support isn't really a thing.
Hyperbola GNU/Linux and Wordgrinder or jstar (from the Joe package) and Markdown, or even Groff as the basic syntax can be easy enough. Then you run
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
If you use a machine with an ISA slot, you can get a card with a chip called CH375 or CH376, which deploys a USB flash drive like a normal hard disc with either a loadable driver or option BIOS ROM. You can just pull out the entire drive and mount it on a normal Windows or Linux box.
I think the below-mentioned Pocket 376 might have one soldered-on already.
https://github.com/lproven/usb-dos
"To get your work off the key, just insert the key into a computer that's already running any more modern OS than DOS."
I thought freedos could use usb? Get something with built in ethernet or serial and you can transfer that way pretty easy too.
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've had similar thoughts and ended up going with FreeBSD and no network connection for my use case. It's been great. It gives you some of the expected terminal ergonomics (and USB support) without the distractions.
It should run fine under dosemu with a minimal console only Linux.
WordStar was great once you had the keycombos memorized.
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.
Robert J. Sawyer is pretty responsive to emails and seeing how it’s been 30 years since he wrote that, I wonder if his views and toolset have changed since then and he might be amenable to sharing more.
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!
I believe George R. R. Martin uses wordstar to write his books. I still hold a little hope that he will finish A Song of Ice and Fire series.
Followed the UCSD p-system of putting command prompts on screen. Useful but also irritating to attention and screen real estate.
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.
Story time. In college 40+ years ago my housemate wanted to impress
this girl by inviting her to write an important paper of hers with a
looming deadline on his computer with WordStar instead of her usual
methodology involving a typewriter. She was using WordStar comfortably
in less than five minutes but being completely new to it was unaware
of the practice of periodically saving one's work. Around three in the
morning it crashed and took all of her work with it. I was told she
burst into tears and had left when I woke up the next morning to find
my housemate busily trying to retype it from her handwritten notes.
This article (saw it somewhere years ago) was a large influence on my emacs config. Because of it I discovered emacs' secondary selection feature, which I use all the time now.
I never used WordStar, but I've been an emacs user since 1989 and I love how they use the control key & that they shipped a tool to swap capslock/control. Swapping caps/control has been a constant in my life since I stopped using *nix workstations that put control in the correct place (left side of home row).
I wrote my middle-school papers in WordStar...
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've used WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, MultiMate, Sprint, XyWrite, and just about every other MS-DOS
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.
WordStar was my first (WP) love and I found it on a CP/M computer which was being used to great effect for all sorts of office things. They later binned the computer for an IBM PC and I salvaged it. Worked great for a few more years and I really, really missed WS when it failed.
The later version of Wordstar had a style template system which I thought was nice. So where Word Perfect had tags and more tags. Wordstar you just applied a predefined style to a block of text. I think somewhat like CSS.
Wouldn’t a modern app like iA Wtiter or any other distraction free full screen text based writer be just as good? Or why does WordStar still have his fanbase decades later?
Using its text mode, WordStar made a pretty good programming editor.
I fondly remember writing, mostly poetry, with wordstar on my first portable, the kaypro. I still have all the files. I believe it was CPM under the hood...
I still have memories of having to install Wordstar 2000 on 5 1/4" floppies. I think it was like 20 discs and painfully slow.
I went from wordstar to xywrite which I preferred. I also miss my green phosopher monitor
Side topic, but that website is awesome.
WordStar nailed something we keep relearning: a tool with one job and a strong opinion about it beats a configurable everything-app for real work. No notifications, no panels, no 'while you're here' — just you and the text. I build small software, and the hard discipline isn't adding features, it's refusing them so the default stays out of the way. The nostalgia in these threads isn't really for the software, it's for that quiet.