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Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks

From scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter)
Newsgroups comp.misc
Subject Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks
Date 2014-05-15 17:10 +0000
Organization USS Voyager NCC-74656, Delta Quadrant
Message-ID <ll2sdu$ppa$1@dont-email.me> (permalink)
References <lkvedn$1c6$1@solani.org> <2014051423313693857-sail0r@examplecom>

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In article <2014051423313693857-sail0r@examplecom>,
sail0r  <sail0r@example.com> wrote:
>On 2014-05-14 09:52:55 +0000, RS Wood said:
>
>> The blogosphere is buzzing this week with the revelation[1] that George R.R.
>> Martin[2] , the much-admired author of the A Game of Thrones[3] and more,
>> actually does his writing on a DOS machine running the old, 1970s word
>> processor, Wordstar[4] .
>
>When I read that I wondered just how he got the files to his publisher?
>Is he running DOS in emulation and just otherwise emails the files?
>If not, does he snail mail them a floppy disk? Dial up to some remote machine?
>Anyone know?

He has two machines, one for writing and another for everything else.  If it
were me, I'd have the writing machine connected to the LAN, with a Samba
share (or equivalent) mapped.  That would keep works in progress on
(presumably) reasonably modern equipment, only being edited on the older
machine.  I used to have an IBM PC/XT (not a clone) set up this way, with
the last version of DR DOS, an 8-bit NIC (10BaseT, even) that I'd found at a
local computer-surplus store, and a DOS-based network stack that I think I
had copied from a Windows install CD of some sort, though this suggests that
they're now free downloads:

http://www.jacco2.dds.nl/samba/dos.html

Failing that, a floppy disk or a null-modem connection would also work.  I
used to have a null-modem cable between my Apple IIs and whatever x86 box I
had at the time for file transfers because you couldn't exchange files
between the two with floppies (at least not with the hardware I had). 

Floppies would be easy and cheap, and while they had become somewhat less
reliable in more recent years, they'd usually at least last for the few
minutes it'd take to write the file on one box and read it in on the other
box.

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/            Top-posting!
 \_^_/                              >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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Wordstar on DOS still rocks RS Wood  <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-14 09:52 +0000
  Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks sail0r <sail0r@example.com> - 2014-05-14 23:31 -0400
    Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-15 07:02 +0000
      Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Hils <hils@saynotospam.net> - 2014-05-15 08:31 +0100
        Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-15 11:50 +0000
          Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Rich <rich@example.com> - 2014-05-15 12:50 +0000
            Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-15 15:53 +0000
              Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2014-05-15 17:27 +0000
                Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Rich <rich@example.com> - 2014-05-15 18:10 +0000
                Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-16 03:53 +0000
      Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-15 15:59 +0000
        Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-15 17:08 +0000
          Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-15 23:31 +0000
            Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks David Harmon <source@netcom.com> - 2014-05-15 18:02 -0700
              Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-16 03:56 +0000
                Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks David Harmon <source@netcom.com> - 2014-05-19 11:30 -0700
            Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-05-16 06:06 +0000
        Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Anssi Saari <as@sci.fi> - 2014-05-19 23:14 +0300
          Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-19 23:12 +0000
    Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-15 15:59 +0000
    Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2014-05-15 17:10 +0000
      Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Rich <rich@example.com> - 2014-05-15 17:55 +0000
        Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Lewis <g.kreme@gmail.com.dontsendmecopies> - 2014-05-15 23:33 +0000
          Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks "John" <j@j.j> - 2014-05-22 10:32 -0700
  Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> - 2014-05-16 09:59 +0100
    Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-05-18 19:01 +0200
  Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> - 2014-05-16 18:10 +0100
    Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-05-18 14:11 +0000
      Re: Wordstar on DOS still rocks Peter Percival <peterxpercival@hotmail.com> - 2014-05-18 16:18 +0100

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