08-06-2024, 09:39 AM | #1 | |
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One of our members and WordStar
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More details at https://sfwriter.com/blog/?p=5806 Last edited by PeterT; 08-06-2024 at 09:44 AM. |
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08-06-2024, 10:43 AM | #2 |
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Very cool
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08-06-2024, 10:43 AM | #3 |
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I have memories of first being introduced to WordStar on my Osborne luggable computer. Then I discovered Borland and Turbo Pascal where the editor interface used the WordStar style keys. From there it was onto my Eagle luggable PC where I added SideKick to the mix (again the same editor interface).
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08-06-2024, 11:46 AM | #4 |
the rook, bossing Never.
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I used Wordstar on CP/M before there was an IBM PC in the UK or Ireland. An Apple II with a Z80 card, 80 column card and replacement keyboard with added 2 x 1M byte 8" floppy drives. The Apple II text and keyboard was primitive and floppy 100K and slow.
Later I used and sold NewWord, a Wordstar clone, on CP/M (Amstrad PCW) and MS-DOS. Then in early 1990s I wrote a text editor for DOS in Modula-2 that used Wordstar keys and Menu/Mouse and worked OK on NT and Win 3.x. It also had hyperlinking so a document could be an outline and each chapter in a separate file. It wasn't constrained by RAM as the part in RAM was only a window of the file, It also had a foot pedals (buttons on joystick port) and used the sound card to play audio dictation which could be copied in to HDD at twice speed, if the dictation cassette/microcassette was recorded at half speed. It had no formatting at all. You optionally used markup recognised by DTP or Word or Sun Office. Like a better version of Notepad, but limited only by disk space. Non-NT Notepad (Win2, 3.x. Win9x etc) could only edit 64 K or less files. Ten years+ later I was using notepad++ for capturing writing and MS Word 2002/XP to edit. My last "Wordstar" foray two years ago was a Joyce Emulator on Linux (available on Windows) and reading 3" and 3.5" CP/M floppies (simple adaptor for 3" drive) on my last PC with a real floppy port. I copied the Amstrad PCW CP/M files (Newword, but like older wordstar) and then wrote a Perl script to convert to ASCII as the original WS use the 8th bit to mark word and line breaks etc. I did write a novel on Wordstar and a History of Computers & Communications. It was good in its day for business correspondence, mail merge and a draft of a novel. Last edited by Quoth; 08-06-2024 at 11:52 AM. |
08-06-2024, 12:02 PM | #5 | |
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Quote:
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...9&postcount=64 |
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08-06-2024, 12:19 PM | #6 |
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Yes. I saw his post on Writing only after posting this: (
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08-06-2024, 03:08 PM | #7 |
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08-06-2024, 06:44 PM | #8 |
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Poor people who had to deal with that braindead software... especially those who had decode the garbage WS produced.
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08-06-2024, 11:31 PM | #9 |
Recovering reader
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I typed my M.Sc. thesis with WordStar.
Yeah, I'm that old Last edited by guanaco; 08-07-2024 at 12:04 AM. Reason: Fixed typo |
08-06-2024, 11:38 PM | #10 |
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08-07-2024, 11:29 AM | #11 | |
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Quote:
It wasn't hard to convert to formatted text with its ASCII utility. |
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08-07-2024, 12:20 PM | #12 |
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Wordstar cannot open DOS text files even in its programmer's mode, and it surrounds every non-ASCII symbol in the text individually with a SI/SO pair. Earlier versions couldn't do even that, being CP/M leftovers.
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08-07-2024, 03:20 PM | #13 |
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A fan thread celebrating the free release of software people enjoyed (or just remembered fondly) isn't exactly hard to refrain from raining on. Just saying.
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08-07-2024, 05:44 PM | #14 | |
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Quote:
WordStar was not designed to be a text editor. It was designed to be a word processor but, even in Linux in 2024, I can still write in WordStar for DOS and convert my documents for use elsewhere. The Convert utility actually allowed you to convert WordStar documents to many formats. There's probably a better choice than the text format, but I'm used to working with text documents so that's what I (personally) use. |
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08-07-2024, 06:25 PM | #15 |
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Long ago I read an introduction to a novel, it was either scifi or fantasy, where author thanked IT guy that helped him recover draft from a dying pc/laptop that was in an obscure format. I think that it dealt with this software.
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