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Old 05-04-2015, 08:00 AM   #22
Notjohn
mostly an observer
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Join Date: Dec 2012
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Quote:
Originally Posted by theducks View Post
Wordstar DOS (I started at WS 3.0) the original with dot command markup?
or the later
Windows versions?
Oh, DOS, of course!

It is a brilliant program, never matched in all the years since. It is in effect a third keyboard level, so that one has lower case, caps, and editing commands, all without looking at the keyboard or moving one's hand off the home keys. I went from 42 wpm on a manual typewriter to 100 wpm on an Olympic electronic typewriter with a CPM computer extension running what I suppose was WS 3.

Mike Petrie has created a WordStar command set for Word that makes the clunky Microsoft software function well, though not perfectly. (One must switch to Alt-A to Mark All, for example.) I usually finish up manuscripts on Word, because that's how editors expect to receive them.

I have successfully punted WordStar (it's 7D, the last release) through all successive Windows machines, down to Win 7 32-bit. It still works perfectly though I have lost the ability to copy from WS to Clipboard (I can go the other way), so in the rare case where I must do this, I open the WS file in Notepad. I also can no longer print from WS, though most afficionados have built a workaround use Ghostscript for that purpose.

IMHO the introduction of WordStar made the whole computer revolution worthwhile, even if it had never led to nothing else. I cannot imagine doing without it.
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