WordStar 7, the Last Ever DOS Version, Is Re-Released For Free (theregister.com) 57
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Register: Before WordPerfect, the most popular work processor was WordStar. Now, the last ever DOS version has been bundled and set free by one of its biggest fans. WordStar 7.0d was the last-ever DOS release of the classic word processor, and it still has admirers today. A notable enthusiast is Canadian SF writer Robert J Sawyer, who wrote the book that became the TV series Flashforward.
Thanks to his efforts you can now try out this pinnacle of pre-Windows PC programs for professional prose-smiths. Sawyer has taken the final release, packaged it up along with some useful tools -- including DOS emulators for modern Windows -- and shared the result. Now you, too, can revel in the sheer unbridled power of this powerful app. The download is 680MB, but as well as the app itself, full documentation, and some tools to help translate WordStar documents to more modern formats, it also includes copies of two FOSS tools that will let you run this MS-DOS application on modern Windows: DOSbox-X and vDosPlus. "The program has been a big part of my career -- not only did I write all 25 of my novels and almost all of my short stories with it (a few date back to the typewriter era), I also in my earlier freelance days wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles with WordStar," says Sawyer.
Thanks to his efforts you can now try out this pinnacle of pre-Windows PC programs for professional prose-smiths. Sawyer has taken the final release, packaged it up along with some useful tools -- including DOS emulators for modern Windows -- and shared the result. Now you, too, can revel in the sheer unbridled power of this powerful app. The download is 680MB, but as well as the app itself, full documentation, and some tools to help translate WordStar documents to more modern formats, it also includes copies of two FOSS tools that will let you run this MS-DOS application on modern Windows: DOSbox-X and vDosPlus. "The program has been a big part of my career -- not only did I write all 25 of my novels and almost all of my short stories with it (a few date back to the typewriter era), I also in my earlier freelance days wrote hundreds of newspaper and magazine articles with WordStar," says Sawyer.
Odd admiration. (Score:2)
I can understand a writers admiration for the typewriter, especially if they had used it professionally before. But a word processing program?
I guess I just don’t see the reason in admiring that particular flavor of yesteryear. Do old spellcheckers turn people on or something?
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I never used wordstar per se but I got used to the syntax early using Borland Turbos IDE. I still use Joe's own editor nowadays which has a wordstar syntax as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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Re:Odd admiration. (Score:4, Interesting)
You'll also find nano on most systems, similar key layout.
Wordstar was a pioneer because it started before MS Word and was distributed freely on many CP/M distributions/versions. You could network it (primitively), and it worked on many terminal types. It wasn't WYSWYG, but it had features that lent Wordstar to typesetting machines. It was much easier to deploy than TeX, LaTeX, and other Unix/BSD-based (pre-Linux) systems.
WordPerfect, then Word tookover, with many interim DTP apps.
It's a bit of history, and for those that made it muscle memory, it lives on in Joe, nano, and other variants. I have that muscle memory, the way others have vi/vim muscle memory.
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Oh? Control-P to purge your document without any input and my mom's master's paper disagree. Yeah, other programs used that for print, Wordstar wanted the UNIX Control-d, dump to printer.
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It's worth noting that Wordstar seldom corrupted or lost your file. Something that could not be said of the comparable products of that era.
WordPerfect was extremely reliable, and better than Wordstar in most ways. I'm talking about the DOS version, not the later Windows WYSIWG version.
I found both WP and WS to be more productive than WYSIWG word processors. They made it easier to separate content creation from presentation tweaking.
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If you liked Borland IDEs, try mcedit (the editor from mc - Midnight Commander)
Re:Odd admiration. (Score:5, Insightful)
guess I just don’t see the reason in admiring that particular flavor of yesteryear. Do old spellcheckers turn people on or something?
It's about ease of use. I used WordStar, briefly, something something decades ago and it, like WordPerfect, just worked. There wasn't all the BS that Word has getting in the way. Anyone could sit down and use it with little to no training, and with a little bit of experience could be very comfortable getting work done.
Writers don't need fluff. They need to get things done. Using a 30+ year old word processing program is one way of doing that.
Re:Odd admiration. (Score:4, Interesting)
Wordstar's key binding were simply *logical* once you started using them.
The basic "diamond" of directionality, with those same keys "magnified" by using prefixes, or the next key from the center.
And they were consistent enough that once you had the basics, you could use other combinations that you *hadn't* seen with predictable results.
And the help system was *spectacular* for its day (and here I'm speaking 8 bit). It initially occupied nearly half the screen with the common commands, including those to take you to submenus.
By the time you had those down, you also picked up the commands to set the level of help in the process. ^Jh, my fingers want to say. I think default was three, with two omitting constant display, but bringing up the help screens once your hit a prefix, down to zero which just stayed out of your way entirely.
It took me a couple of decades for finger memory to finally stop trying to use ws bindings. I actually configured word (for Mac, not the dos disaster) to use the keystrokes my fingers were used to using.
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There wasn't all the BS that Word has getting in the way.
Literally everything in Word can be turned off, even the ribbon hidden, and the page layout view can be gone. If you don't like BS / fluff you don't need to go install a whole different OS emulator to use a word processor.
Anyone could sit down and use it with little to no training, and with a little bit of experience could be very comfortable getting work done.
You literally are describing word, it is perhaps the most used software on the planet after the web browser and used from people ranging from programmers sitting in corporate America, to my mother (who for context once thought my dad deleted a part of the internet when a shortcut disappear
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There is a whole range "distraction-free" writing applications (ghostwriter, focuswriter; web: Calmly writer, zenpen, write.as). People even buy dedicated devices https://getfreewrite.com/ [getfreewrite.com] while they could, following your argument, disguise any normal laptop into a dedicated typewriter (turning off the internet connection and opening Notepad in fullscreen). It isn't the same. Some people need to empty their minds for creative tasks and they need to know that the monster isn't there, not just disguised or mi
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> turning off the internet connection
Thats a poor-mans distraction free system right there. It will work for those with disipline, but the whole point of a distraction free environment is it should make it as hard as possible to let you distract yourself.
Of course, you could just walk off and play a game on something else etc but even that, the act of physically having to move might be enough to keep you focused.
Thus an environment that can NEVER connect to the internet, at least not by itself, is best.
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It's because typewriters are tedious and modern document editors are bloated and clumsy. It the old word processors were a middle ground of a type writer with enough enhancements to make it the most convenient for people who need to write but don't need a lot of typesetting or formatting or data integration.
Newword appreciation club! (Score:1)
newword was a wordstar compatable program that came about after some former wordstar employees went and created their own company.
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I can understand a writers admiration for the typewriter, especially if they had used it professionally before. But a word processing program?
I guess I just don’t see the reason in admiring that particular flavor of yesteryear. Do old spellcheckers turn people on or something?
Emacs has a cult following. Is this any different?
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Emacs is life
Low bloat (Score:2)
But a word processing program?
I guess I just don’t see the reason in admiring that particular flavor of yesteryear.
TL;DR: it's the quantity of bloat.
Consider the horrible train wreck of dumpsters on fire that is the modern Microsoft Office 365, a giant mess that requires a top of the line modern computer because "the browser is the OS now !" or some bullshit like this.
Compared to that, WordStar (and most word processors back from that era, but WordStar was a popular one, setting one of the de facto standards) has the complexity of editing Markdown documents in a simple text editor (and few features more than that - eno
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> But a word processing program?
Never word processed I see.
Look up muscle memory. Then research how the human brain naturally avoids breaking such things.
Some people are so flitting they flip flop between interfaces like it’s some kind of fashion.
I eventually went back to using Window Maker as my window manager on my PC, take a look at it: https://www.windowmaker.org/sc... [windowmaker.org]
Look at it's clean simple and elegant UI design. That’s perfection right there. I cut my Linux teeth on this and Afters
Simple, at least for me! (Score:3)
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Note the lower contrast grey text on a black background. Much easier on the eyes for long sessions.
I used to use DisplayWrite... Or was it the "light" version? Anyway, being IBM, it was grey text on a blue background, so when you looked away from the screen everything was yellow for a while. The main issue with it was that spell checking was not real-time, it was a separate function. Or maybe that was good, it did mean you could concentrate on the writing and not worry about spelling mistakes and typos unti
I love Wordstar and Joe, too. (Score:2)
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For doubters, Wordstar's appeal and power is probably mostly due to it's keystrokes being EMACS-like chording style, it's simple, it has good help, and it has a lot of decent typesetting-related features, too (if you use the "real" DOS version). Joe is also nice and binary-clean and has some great syntax highlight support for regular terminals (no fancy X interface needed).
Wordstar (Score:2)
Ah, this brings back memories (not all good). I started out using WordStar in about 1985, finding it OK but not great, and then tried Wordstar 2000, which was terrible. Once I tried WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS, though, I never monkeyed with Wordstar again.
By the late 80s (89?) I'd moved to UNIX and briefly vi; then emacs and I've been on emacs since 1990.
I thankfully never used Windows in any serious way, having moved straight from DOS to UNIX and then Linux.
If you miss wordstar keybindings... (Score:2)
Back in college... (Score:5, Interesting)
Back in college I had a history professor that used WordStar, and continued to do so...knew every short-cut, feature every nook and cranny. Detested Microsoft Word (although I liked Word in the late 1990s as a word processor...especially the document readability measure...) This professor had a rivalry with another of WordStar vs. WordPerfect. I recall anytime e-mailing an assignment, I just sent the text file. I sent a Word .doc once... :)
Yet, I have a friend/colleague that uses CalmlyWriter https://calmlywriter.com/ [calmlywriter.com] for distraction free writing. They tried some of the old abandonware editors, word processors...the problem was spending more time getting the DOS-box to work smoothly than writing.
The free version works well, and for $15 get use of 3-computers license. My friend friend put it on MacBook Pro, Acer Windows laptop, and then a Linux box.
When there was a glitch with install/using fonts, he reached out to the author for help, and they responded...now it works fine. For now I'm using TextMate for writing both code and text.
During the DOS-era, I liked Turbo Edit, and then Norton Textra--I used on an old LCD display Bondwell laptop computer in college. Then I'd go to the library and "beautify" using Word. Now I'd have to go online and use Office 365...
JoshK.
Love it (Score:1)
PC Write beat the stuffing out of WordStar (Score:2)
I wrote a lot of code using PC Write back in the mid-80s. I once was tempted to interview for a job in Antarctica that required PC Write expertise. I regret not giving up my coding job for a 6-18 month sting in Antarctica do in clerk work.
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sting => stint
A 680 MB Download!?!?!?!? (Score:2)
Re:A 680 MB Download!?!?!?!? (Score:5, Informative)
So I downloaded to see what's up with that (these are of course decompressed):
PDF Manuals are 480MB
vDosPlus is 50MB.
DosBox-X is 129MB.
and so forth. The actual app of course is miniscule.
wordperfect legal edition keep wordperfect around (Score:2)
word perfect legal edition keeps word perfect around
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WordPerfect still beats Word hands down.
much better markup language underneath
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I wondered about that, lawyers are the most hidebound creatures there are. Our niece works for some ambulance chasers in Louisiana and they're still using Word Perfect as are all the others in their area. I think her bosses are pirating it, though.
MS Word is a PoS ... (Score:2)
... of Software. You notice that when you use one of the more sophisticated Word processors from the 90ies. I personally was found of Ami Pro and its successor in the Lotus Smart Suite.
The truth is that MS Word is so crappy a word prozessor from the DOS era actually _can_ be better.
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Word isn't really a word processor any more. It's instead somewhere between quite terrible DTP software and the world's worst software development environment (since it has scripting.)
The peak of MS Word was 5.1 for Macintosh and everything since that has been an attempt to replace MS Publisher with something more reliable.
Word of today is fairly pathetic. It can't even do scrolling well. Scroll down and then right back up quickly (or vice versa) and the text doesn't draw until you stop moving. Even LibreOf
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The problem with Excel is that it's used for a lot of things that should be in an actual database, I've seen multi-gigabyte Excel docs that when I port them to SQL Server then occupy a couple hundred megabytes at the most. People use what they know though, and since the interfaces for databases are uniformly end user 'unfriendly' (aka 'shitty') they stay with Excel.
Re: MS Word is a PoS ... (Score:2)
I agree that's a problem, but I'd say it's not really an Excel problem, but a user and possibly management problem. The worst you can say is that Excel will actually do that, where if you tried it with another spreadsheet it would crash long before you got there.
Linux port? (Score:1)
"re-released for free?" (Score:4, Insightful)
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Someone just uploading it to the internet isn't "re-releasing it for free", it's just a pirated copy packaged up nicely. Odd way to report. Article states he claims it's abandonware and no one knows who has the rights, but it's hardly a legit re-release.
My thoughts exactly.
Re: "re-released for free?" (Score:2)
I'm not saying I agree or disagree with piracy, it's just an extremely odd way to phrase it and implies it's a legitimate re-release and legitimately free, when it's neither.
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Someone just uploading it to the internet isn't "re-releasing it for free", it's just a pirated copy packaged up nicely. Odd way to report. Article states he claims it's abandonware and no one knows who has the rights, but it's hardly a legit re-release.
IMO we should change copyright law for software to specify that abandonware falls into the public domain in 20 years. Maybe less. How precisely to define "abandonware" might be a little bit tricky, but I think a reasonable legal definition could be created.
I actually think we need something similar for music and movies. When copyright law becomes an obstacle to the progress of the useful arts and sciences because it's locking stuff up so that no one can get it, it should cease to apply.
Re: "re-released for free?" (Score:2)
Re: "re-released for free?" (Score:1)
680 MB (Score:2)
I don't believe that. This stuff used to fit on a floppy (1.44 MB) or a few floppies. I get it that it's the source code and some docs. I still don't believe the 680 number that's just BS. What other junk is in the download?
Re: 680 MB (Score:2)
TECO (Score:2)
Wordstar... pah. TECO forever!
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Wordstar... pah. TECO forever!
TECO: that's a blast from the past! Had a lot of fun with TECO on RSX and RSTS systems back in the day. What's not to like about a language where any arbitrary string of characters can be a valid program? :-)
Re: TECO (Score:2)
DEC Basic had no RENumber command (d'oh!) so I wrote a 250+ line TECO macro that did the job. To this day my left pinky finger stays extended to hit the ESC key.
Not even retro Funny (Score:2)
I had high hopes for Funny when I spotted the story. At least an eighth bit joke...
Good (Score:2)
I've had WordStar 7 installed on my computers (DOS, win & Linux) since it came out... it's still there on my win & Linux systems and runs fine in DOXBox.
But then I started with WordStar 3.0 (or maybe that was 3.3) on CP/M (a Kaypro II). It wasn't my first word processor but it was the first I used for an extended period of time. I still have a bunch of old files created with WordStar which is one of the reasons for keeping it alive on my current system.
This was a fully functional and (for me) easy
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We set up laptops for our nieces and nephews and take them to Peru with us. I always install Libre Office for them, and then configure it to default to the MS extensions. No one has had any problem with it with the exception of a couple of macro-infested Excel docs.
WordStar (Score:1)
I remember using WordStar on my first laptop in the early 90s, an Epson PX-8 running CP/M.