WordStar DOS 7.0d -- Chromebook

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Quoth

I think a golfball or daisywheel could do at most 96 characters

That would mean at least 2 non-ASCII characters, as SP and DEL have no character on the wheel associated with them. US typewheels usually used those for ¢ and ½.

MS bought in DOS from a company that reverse engineered it from CP/M 86

That is an urban legend, utterly disproven in court of law.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Sarmat89

That is an urban legend, utterly disproven in court of law.

What court case? I didn't think any of this went to court. Did I miss something?

[Quoth]

There was no court case about that specific issue. Either Gary Kiddal lost interest, or something else. IBM did try to buy CP/M 86 but he didn't engage.

MS certainly earlier ported Dartmouth Basic and sold it as MS Basic and DID buy in an 8086 DOS that was basis of MSDOS/PCDOS. It's almost identical to CP/M 86 & CP/M 80 on the "API", called software Interrupts. Obviously the commands & syntax is different, but that's trivial change.

I was using CP/M on Z80 before PC existed and the ACT Sirius 1 (Victor 9000) was sold in UK with CP/M 86 before MS-DOS was on it. PC-DOS (the IBM version of MS-DOS) was only on the IBM PC.

It's absolutely not Urban myth.

However Apple's later court case against Windows was crazy because MS, Apple, Digital Research etc all copied Xerox. I think MS had to rename the Trash to Recycle Bin and change appearance, but that might be mythical.

US Tech court cases are famously about who has deeper pockets and lobbyists with Gov. Apple shouldn't have won any case against Samsung, ever.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Quoth

There was no court case about that specific issue. Either Gary Kiddal lost interest, or something else. IBM did try to buy CP/M 86 but he didn't engage. ...

I've read that IBM convinced Gary Kildall to not press forward with his lawsuit against Seattle Computer and/or Microsoft because IBM would also supply CP/M 86 with their PCs (along with MS-DOS). And they did, sort of, for a premium price. Apparently Gary Kildall hadn't been happy with IBM's terms and IBM wasn't happy with him because he stood them up. When Bill Gates offered them an OS (that he didn't even own yet) they were happy they could avoid Gary Kildall.

I don't know how much of this is myth and how much is fact, but I can believe IBM was used to doing things on their own terms and probably weren't happy with Digital Research's contract negotiations.

[Quoth]

Frightening it's over 40 years ago. I feel very old

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Frightening it's over 40 years ago. I feel very old

I actually lived when people used slide rules... and typewriters. My first computer was a Timex-Sinclar 1000 with 2k of memory. But no worries, I invested in a 16k add-on module. When I got my first PC XT, I bought a hard drive on sale for it. 40 MBs (not Gigabytes) for only $250 at Radio Shack! I think it was the RLL format (i.e. slow, and even slower when I used the "disk doubler" software that was built into DR DOS). When I was working for a local telephone/computer store a few years later, we were thrilled when we got our first 1 GB hard drives. It was slow as molasses, 5-1/4" format, but it was ONE GIGABYTE. Now for $7 I can buy a name brand 32 GB thumb drive, even when they're not on sale.

(Yes, I'm old.)

[Martinoptic]

Me too. I had a zx81 but didn’t get the ram pack. Used sliderule at school and still have 2 of them. Sadly no longer have the zx81.

[Quoth]

My 1st HDD was 5 Mbyte. Before the IBM-PC existed. It needed a separate PSU. My company had been "conned" into getting an Apple II. We should have started with an S-100 system. Added Z80 card (for CP/M), 80 column card, real keyboard, dual 8" drives (1M). The HDD was last. The Apple II floppy drive was a joke. Their own custom 100K format design.
Written on a i7-6700 @3.4GHz, 512G NVMe SSD, 2 T SATA HDD, 28" 4K screen. 10s boot to Linux Mint (Mate Desktop). When I remember how slow MS Xenix was on a 286, or Cromenco's 68000 CPU Unix like Cromix. I once had NT3.51 on a 386. In real terms the i7 PC mentioned, UPS & 4K screen costs less than a bare Apple II in 1980 with no extras.
KATE when I want distraction free writing. LO Writer for all Wordprocessing for years now. Stepped off the MS Office & Windows Treadmill.

[Sarmat89]

Originally Posted by Quoth

It's almost identical to CP/M 86 & CP/M 80 on the "API", called software Interrupts.

API is not copyrightable. The legend went that QDOS included some CP/M-86 source code, eventually claiming that it contained Kildall's name in an obfuscated form.

[theducks]

I remember talking my dad into getting an Epson QX-10 (CPM) because no one would buy that new IBM thing and CPM had been around forever

[RobertJSawyer]

Why I still use WordStar for DOS 7.0:

https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

DOSBox-X -- rather than regular DOSBox -- is the way to run it, under Windows up to and including 11, Mac OS, and Linux:

https://dosbox-x.com

[darryl]

Word Perfect used to be the standard for legal typists. They almost invariably hated shifting to more modern word processors because of the use of the mouse. Old Dos word processors did have a learning curve, but once they mastered it they could work very quickly without taking their fingers off the keyboard. Modern Word Processors actually slowed them down! Certainly this was the complaint of many, though resistance to chqnge probably also played a big part.

If you are using Linux you can try out the feel of Wordstar. Install the "Joe" editor and run it from a shell with the command jstar. Just remember it is not wysiwg. If you learn or already know it is not a bad text editor.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

Why I still use WordStar for DOS 7.0:

https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

I started with WordStar 5, so that's the one I like to use DOSBox — I never really used the advanced features, like you do.

Originally Posted by RobertJSawyer

DOSBox-X -- rather than regular DOSBox -- is the way to run it, under Windows up to and including 11, Mac OS, and Linux:

https://dosbox-x.com

Ah, much better. Now I can set my screen size just by dragging. Thank you. I just used the FlatPak package.

One issue (for me) is that Quake (a terminal) uses F12 for toggling on and off – and a lot depends on F12 in DOSBox-X, so I guess I have to change one or the other.

Anyhow, just a nit. Thanks.

[rcentros]

Originally Posted by darryl

Word Perfect used to be the standard for legal typists. They almost invariably hated shifting to more modern word processors because of the use of the mouse. Old Dos word processors did have a learning curve, but once they mastered it they could work very quickly without taking their fingers off the keyboard. Modern Word Processors actually slowed them down! Certainly this was the complaint of many, though resistance to chqnge probably also played a big part.

I never liked WordPerfect much — mostly because it depended on the Function Keys. WordStar kept you hands on the in the "home row." But either was much faster than a WYSIWYG word processor.

Originally Posted by darryl

If you are using Linux you can try out the feel of Wordstar. Install the "Joe" editor and run it from a shell with the command jstar. Just remember it is not wysiwg. If you learn or already know it is not a bad text editor.

Jstar is what I use for almost all my initial writing. I've got small shell scripts for different types of files. For example, I hit F12 to open Quake (a terminal) and then "jn filename" opens (or creates) a file in Jstar in my notes sub-directory. (There's four or five other sub-directories, with different shell scripts.) The one disadvantage of of Jstar, is that it doesn't do "soft" word wrapping for importing text into a word processor. There's a work-around, but it would be nicer if this feature was implemented.

[Dr. Drib]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Frightening it's over 40 years ago. I feel very old

I'll second that!

All this talk brings back memories of my Kaypro II - good memories, I might add.