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WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

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  WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-09-05 09:57 +0000
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2014-09-05 16:41 +0300
      Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-09-05 10:18 -0400
      Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-09-05 15:45 +0100
        Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> - 2014-09-05 14:45 -0400
          Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-09-06 01:38 +0000
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Whiskers <catwheezel@operamail.com> - 2014-09-06 17:18 +0000
      Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) Michael Murphy <fake@nospam.invalid> - 2014-09-06 17:54 -0400
    Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-09-07 10:12 +0000
      Re: WordStar:  A Writer's Word Processor (1996) polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-09-11 18:38 +0100

#4712 — WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

   Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
   Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
   James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
   Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
   Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
   writing tool of choice.

   Still, most of us have endured years of mindless criticism of our
   decision, usually from WordPerfect users, and especially from
   WordPerfect users who have never tried anything but that program. I've
   used WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, MultiMate, Sprint, XyWrite, and just
   about every other MS-DOS and Windows word-processing package, and
   WordStar is by far my favorite choice for creative composition at the
   keyboard.

   That's the key point: aiding creative composition. To understand how
   WordStar does that better than other programs, let me start with a
   little history.

   ...

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#4717

Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:

> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>
>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>    writing tool of choice.

Since that's so old (1996), it would be interesting to know who of the
writers on that list are still using WordStar almost 20 years
later... Off the top of my head Martin does and Clarke doesn't but I
have no idea about the others.

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#4718

On Fri, 5 Sep 2014, Anssi Saari wrote:

> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>>
>>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>>    writing tool of choice.
>
> Since that's so old (1996), it would be interesting to know who of the
> writers on that list are still using WordStar almost 20 years
> later... Off the top of my head Martin does and Clarke doesn't but I
> have no idea about the others.
>
I don't know if she's using Wordstar, but Jo Walton, who is local now, had 
problems at one point when her old laptop broke down, because she used it 
to run something old for her writing.  A reader came up with a suitable 
replacement laptop.

I think she has a more recent computer for other things.  I don't know if 
she writes on the old machine, then rewrites on a new one.  Lester Del Rey 
apparently did that in the old days, using one typewriter for the first 
draft, then a different (and later) one for the editing and final draft.

   Michael

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#4719

"Anssi Saari" <as@sci.fi> wrote in message 
news:vg3egvqnq1d.fsf@coffee.modeemi.fi...
> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>
>> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>>
>>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>>    writing tool of choice.
>
> Since that's so old (1996), it would be interesting to know who of the
> writers on that list are still using WordStar almost 20 years
> later... Off the top of my head Martin does and Clarke doesn't but I
> have no idea about the others.

Arthur C. Clarke is dead, so wouldn't be using WordStar for that reason. (I 
don't know if he switched to something else between 1996 and his death.)

I've never heard of any of the others.

(I can say that, while *I* don't use WordStar, my own editor still uses many 
of its command codes, 30 years after I first saw it in action. But I use it 
for coding not writing.)

-- 
Bartc 

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#4722

On Fri, 5 Sep 2014, BartC wrote:

>
>
> "Anssi Saari" <as@sci.fi> wrote in message 
> news:vg3egvqnq1d.fsf@coffee.modeemi.fi...
>> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
>> 
>>> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>>>
>>>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>>>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>>>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>>>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>>>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>>>    writing tool of choice.
>> 
>> Since that's so old (1996), it would be interesting to know who of the
>> writers on that list are still using WordStar almost 20 years
>> later... Off the top of my head Martin does and Clarke doesn't but I
>> have no idea about the others.
>
> Arthur C. Clarke is dead, so wouldn't be using WordStar for that reason. (I 
> don't know if he switched to something else between 1996 and his death.)
>
> I've never heard of any of the others.
>
> (I can say that, while *I* don't use WordStar, my own editor still uses many 
> of its command codes, 30 years after I first saw it in action. But I use it 
> for coding not writing.)
>
There's a Linux program titled "joe" that can emulate a number of editors, 
including wordstar, depending on how it is invoked.  I installed it early, 
thinking that was useful, and then have never invoked it other than "joe"
except to see what the others looked like.

   Michael

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#4728

Michael Black <et472@ncf.ca> wrote:
> On Fri, 5 Sep 2014, BartC wrote:

> >
> >
> > "Anssi Saari" <as@sci.fi> wrote in message 
> > news:vg3egvqnq1d.fsf@coffee.modeemi.fi...
> >> Rich <rich@example.invalid> writes:
> >> 
> >>> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
> >>>
> >>>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger
> >>>    MacBride Allen, Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David
> >>>    Gerrold, Terence M. Green, James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald
> >>>    Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul Levinson, George R. R. Martin,
> >>>    Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer Roberson, and Edo van
> >>>    Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our writing tool
> >>>    of choice.
> >> 
> >> Since that's so old (1996), it would be interesting to know who of
> >> the writers on that list are still using WordStar almost 20 years
> >> later... Off the top of my head Martin does and Clarke doesn't but
> >> I have no idea about the others.
> >
> > Arthur C. Clarke is dead, so wouldn't be using WordStar for that
> > reason. (I don't know if he switched to something else between 1996
> > and his death.)
> >
> > I've never heard of any of the others.
> >
> > (I can say that, while *I* don't use WordStar, my own editor still
> > uses many of its command codes, 30 years after I first saw it in
> > action. But I use it for coding not writing.)
> >
> There's a Linux program titled "joe" that can emulate a number of editors, 
> including wordstar, depending on how it is invoked.  I installed it early, 
> thinking that was useful, and then have never invoked it other than "joe"
> except to see what the others looked like.

Invoking it as "jstar" loads the more complete WordStar configuration
file.  One of the first things I do on a new Slackware install is move
/etc/joe/joerc out of the way, and put in a symlink pointing at
/etc/joe/jstarrc instead.  Then calling joe as "joe" gets the better
WordStar config automatically.

http://joe-editor.sourceforge.net/

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#4729

On 2014-09-05, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>
>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>    writing tool of choice.
>
>    Still, most of us have endured years of mindless criticism of our
>    decision, usually from WordPerfect users, and especially from
>    WordPerfect users who have never tried anything but that program. I've
>    used WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, MultiMate, Sprint, XyWrite, and just
>    about every other MS-DOS and Windows word-processing package, and
>    WordStar is by far my favorite choice for creative composition at the
>    keyboard.
>
>    That's the key point: aiding creative composition. To understand how
>    WordStar does that better than other programs, let me start with a
>    little history.
>
>    ...

WYSIWYG "Word Processors" tend to distract the user from the essential
task (getting the words recorded) because of all the 'formatting' and
'style' stuff provided.  Each new version seems to pile on even more
features which have nothing to do with recording words, and everything
to do with manipulating the appearance of the printed document - which
is irrelevant while the word-generating part of the creative process is
being undertaken, and for some writers is "not my job" but something for
the editor, type-setter, compositor, designer, or some other expert.

The earliest text-interface word processors were incapable of imitating
the appearance of a printed document so even if they had tools for
inserting that sort of thing into the document, if you weren't
interested then they never got in your way.  These days, we'd probably
class those text interface word processors as "text editors" - and there
are plenty of those around, not least the venerable vi and emacs.

-- 
-- ^^^^^^^^^^
--  Whiskers 
-- ~~~~~~~~~~

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#4730

Whiskers wrote:

> On 2014-09-05, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>>
>>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>>    writing tool of choice.
>>
>>    Still, most of us have endured years of mindless criticism of our
>>    decision, usually from WordPerfect users, and especially from
>>    WordPerfect users who have never tried anything but that program. I've
>>    used WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, MultiMate, Sprint, XyWrite, and just
>>    about every other MS-DOS and Windows word-processing package, and
>>    WordStar is by far my favorite choice for creative composition at the
>>    keyboard.
>>
>>    That's the key point: aiding creative composition. To understand how
>>    WordStar does that better than other programs, let me start with a
>>    little history.
>>
>>    ...
> 
> WYSIWYG "Word Processors" tend to distract the user from the essential
> task (getting the words recorded) because of all the 'formatting' and
> 'style' stuff provided.  Each new version seems to pile on even more
> features which have nothing to do with recording words, and everything
> to do with manipulating the appearance of the printed document - which
> is irrelevant while the word-generating part of the creative process is
> being undertaken, and for some writers is "not my job" but something for
> the editor, type-setter, compositor, designer, or some other expert.
> 
> The earliest text-interface word processors were incapable of imitating
> the appearance of a printed document so even if they had tools for
> inserting that sort of thing into the document, if you weren't
> interested then they never got in your way.  These days, we'd probably
> class those text interface word processors as "text editors" - and there
> are plenty of those around, not least the venerable vi and emacs.
> 
Which brings to mind a favorite full screen editor, JDarkRoom.  If you 
haven't played with it, you might care to check it out at:  
<http://www.codealchemists.com/jdarkroom/>  You'll probably want to set 
"force.full.screen=true" in ~/.jdarkroom/jdarkroom.properties.

As in WordStar and jstar, CTRL-J will get you help.

-- 
mm

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#4735

On 2014-09-05, Rich <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
> http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
>
>    Many Science Fiction writers - including myself, Roger MacBride Allen,
>    Jeffrey A. Carver, Arthur C. Clarke, David Gerrold, Terence M. Green,
>    James Gunn, Matthew Hughes, Donald Kingsbury, Eric Kotani, Paul
>    Levinson, George R. R. Martin, Vonda McIntyre, Kit Reed, Jennifer
>    Roberson, and Edo van Belkom - continue to use WordStar for DOS as our
>    writing tool of choice.
>
>    Still, most of us have endured years of mindless criticism of our
>    decision, usually from WordPerfect users, and especially from
>    WordPerfect users who have never tried anything but that program. I've
>    used WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, MultiMate, Sprint, XyWrite, and just
>    about every other MS-DOS and Windows word-processing package, and
>    WordStar is by far my favorite choice for creative composition at the
>    keyboard.
>
>    That's the key point: aiding creative composition. To understand how
>    WordStar does that better than other programs, let me start with a
>    little history.
>
>    ...

Great article, though I notice it was published a while ago.  I
remembered seeing something else on comp.misc - it was "Wordstar still
rocks" from 2014-05-14.  This is a much longer and more elegant essay
though.  

I still use jstar from time to time, though it's more for entertainment
purposes and a change as I'm not familiar with the keybindings.
Perfectly usable though, and if I forced myself to use it for a week I'd
get up to speed with little trouble.  I like how they've laid out the
keybindings.

There's a guy rewriting wordstar for the modern times.  Have a look at
http://wordtsar.ca - I wish him the best of luck, and compliment him on
the name!  I'll probably buy a copy when he releases it, just to keep
him interested.

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#4823

On 07/09/2014 11:12, RS Wood wrote:
> There's a guy rewriting wordstar for the modern times.  Have a look at
> http://wordtsar.ca  - I wish him the best of luck, and compliment him on
> the name!  I'll probably buy a copy when he releases it, just to keep
> him interested.

He's certainly putin a lot of effort.

-- 
Rod

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