WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) (sfwriter.com)

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

Using its text mode, WordStar made a pretty good programming editor.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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...

Side topic, but that website is awesome.

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.

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'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.

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!

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.

I went from wordstar to xywrite which I preferred. I also miss my green phosopher monitor

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?

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).