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WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

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Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#21

Post by hilbert42 »

wombatmobile wrote: post #19
hilbert42 wrote: post #9

I've used many wordprocessors but WordStar still is my favorite, I first used it under CP/M and later on the IBM PC. Anyone who has used it knows that once you got the feel for the WordStar keystroke diamond it was magic to use. I still have hundreds of files in WordStar format and I can either import them into a GUI WYSIWYG WP or I can still use them in WordStar 7 running under an emulated environment in Windows. Wo…

> I've used many wordprocessors but X still is my favorite The best X is the X you know.

Yeah, right, it's usually the case, but I've used MS Word, LibO, and many others since that time and for a much longer time than I ever used WordStar (consistently that is). The difference with WordStar is that one doesn't get sidetracked with layout and other futzing about, it was all WP without distractions.

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#22

Post by marbletiles »

mhd wrote: post #11

I don't have a deep personal affectation for WordStar, although I do appreciate it's keyboard layout, but what I do miss is writers having opinions about these things. These days it seems that it's mostly "whatever version of Word that came with my Laptop/Times New Roman 12". We programmers still have our "holy wars" (although I see a decrease of passion here, too, with safe choices like VSC or IntelliJ being more an…

Those debates continue - to Scrivener or not to Scrivener is quite the topic with long-form writers. And Final Draft is heavily discussed.

But the reason the debate is dying out is because the competition is dying out: Word won. And that doesn’t mean the app, it means all the Simonyi-type ways of thinking it brings with it: paragraph-level formatting with overrides, single frame with embeds, no visible codes beyond P-marks, output-dependent page definition, local fonts, etc.

It’s like if all editors were just vi variants and nobody was trying anything else any longer.

Which is a damn shame, because there are an awful lot of alternative approaches to rich document creation that could be explored, especially now the printed page is probably the least important part of things, but developers don’t care (plain text obsessives, usually) and the industry doesn’t (because competing with Word and GDocs doesn’t make you rich).

Instead what action there would be in the space has moved to things like Notion. Which is great for note-takers, less so for writers.

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#23

Post by every »

I never had much of a call for word processing but I do know that a good deal of the WordStar command-set and philosophy made it into a host of DOS text editors for several decades. And that in turn influenced the "easy and familiar" design of pine/pico/nano editors for *nix...

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#24

Post by LocalH »

hilbert42 wrote: post #9

I've used many wordprocessors but WordStar still is my favorite, I first used it under CP/M and later on the IBM PC. Anyone who has used it knows that once you got the feel for the WordStar keystroke diamond it was magic to use. I still have hundreds of files in WordStar format and I can either import them into a GUI WYSIWYG WP or I can still use them in WordStar 7 running under an emulated environment in Windows. Wo…

>(from memory I think WordMaster (an earlier WP that predated WordStar), was actually first—someone correct me if I'm wrong)

From a cursory search, it seems that WordMaster is the direct predecessor to WordStar, programmed by the same person.

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#25

Post by rimiform »

hilbert42 wrote: post #9

I've used many wordprocessors but WordStar still is my favorite, I first used it under CP/M and later on the IBM PC. Anyone who has used it knows that once you got the feel for the WordStar keystroke diamond it was magic to use. I still have hundreds of files in WordStar format and I can either import them into a GUI WYSIWYG WP or I can still use them in WordStar 7 running under an emulated environment in Windows. Wo…

The ESDX 'diamond' would be nightmare to use on an ortholinear keyboard.

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#27

Post by hilbert42 »

zabzonk wrote: post #2

WordStar was actually also a pretty good programming editor - I used it on Z80 CP/M and 8088 IBM systems for programming. On the Z80, I actually had to write small assembly language routines to read the keyboard and write to the screen (by default it came with integration with CP/M only, which was pretty poor), for which WordStar provided quite a good patching tool to integrate the routines into the main executable.…

You're right, here's the intro of one the ASM files for my CP/M S-100 computer, it's straight from my WordStar archives. The bare-bones, skeletal outline files came from the board manufacturer but it was constantly tweaked and recompiled using WordStar. The file is 107k bytes long (all preliminaries incl. revs deleted):

WordStar used as editor here:

  "
  ; ========================== Copyright 1983, CompuPro Corporation.
  ; ||     HMX1BIOS.ASM ||
  ; ==========================
  ; CONSTANTS:
  VERS EQU 22 
  ; CP/M version number
  CBIOSV EQU 'N' ;CBIOS revision level (2.2x) (CompuPro level)
  ; LIBRARY CONSTANTS:
      MACLIB  COMPUPRO ;Disk and Serial/Parallel interface constants
      MACLIB  ASCII ;Mnemonics for common ASCII, other special characters
      MACLIB  ACTIVE ;Flags directing construction for the various
  ;CompuPro products to "customize" the BIOS
    MACLIB  CPMDISK ;CP/M disk defaults, CBIOS offsets, BDOS functions
    MACLIB  BOOTSCPM ;CP/M cold/warm boot routines for each of the
  ;possible controller types
  ; PROGRAM:
  ; The next statement produces a harmless error message if MAC is used instead.
      ASEG  ;Used Digital Research RMAC assembler and
   ORG BIOS ;LINK linker to assemble this code
   JMP CBOOT ;+00h Cold boot
  "
Oh for the days when we could actually compile our own BIOSes to suit our needs!

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#29

Post by tablespoon »

mhd wrote: post #11

I don't have a deep personal affectation for WordStar, although I do appreciate it's keyboard layout, but what I do miss is writers having opinions about these things. These days it seems that it's mostly "whatever version of Word that came with my Laptop/Times New Roman 12". We programmers still have our "holy wars" (although I see a decrease of passion here, too, with safe choices like VSC or IntelliJ being more an…

> WordPerfect. (Heck, WordPerfect even made lawyers have an opinion of their own)

IIRC, WordPerfect is only still a thing because Word still does not do footnotes the way lawyers like (and courts require).

Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

#30

Post by varjag »

anonymousiam wrote: post #8

I began using WordStar in 1980 for development (in "non-document mode") on CP/M. It was the best thing ever available for that platform, and it had some features that I've never seen duplicated elsewhere (such as "column mode" cut and paste). Back when I was using it, the standard computer keyboard had the "control" key directly to the left of the "A" key (where the "Caps Lock" key is now). I was never happy that IBM…

> "column mode" cut and paste

Emacs (of course) has rectangles.

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