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
That would be 5.1. The 6.0 graphic mode just gets in the way.
WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
51–60 of 94 posts
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#52I 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…
> 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.
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#53Story 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.
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#54I 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…
> 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.
Yes, and most of them were lawyers or worked for law firms.
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#55I'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.
Just use any linux or bsd on a second hand netbook or laptop, install joe editor package, disable graphical desktop and boot to console only. Done.
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#56Earlier quoted context omitted.
Back then we were far less shy about printing things.
After reviewing a few options I think "Just print it out" is still the best choice for long term archival. The density is not high however the hardware requirements being just one mark 1 eyeball(hardware that self replicates and has been stable for millions of years) makes it the clear winner in almost every case.
DoD approves this idea
(Recall the literal warehouses of papers related to projects in Kelly's book and Rich's memoir)
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#57I 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…
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/).
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#58I'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.
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."
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#59Story 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 morn…
The housemate did poor job introducing to computer work. "Thou shall save your work often" was the first rule in those glorious times.
Re: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
#60Story 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 morn…
The housemate did poor job introducing to computer work. "Thou shall save your work often" was the first rule in those glorious times.
Indeed. In high school we had a Mac (Performa?) lab running System 7 in the art department. The whole system would crash so constantly that I would manually save my work almost after every change. Really stunk when Netscape Navigator 3 crashed, because you couldn’t save your work there.