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mkovach 22 minutes ago [-]
I still like to start the first draft of anything substantial by moving to a single screen, opening FreeDOS, maximizing the window, and typing in Wordstar as if it were 1987. Hell, sometimes I'll even put on a nylon windbreaker.
I always preferred WordStar to WordPerfect, largely because WordStar's keybindings were easy to learn and remember. WordPerfect, by contrast, seemed to require keyboard templates, a manual, a cheat sheet, and a certain amount of divine intervention.
EvanAnderson 4 hours ago [-]
If you're like me and grew up using pseudo-Wordstar keybindings (me by way of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C) you may appreciate JOE: https://github.com/joe-editor/joe
epihelix 4 hours ago [-]
I grew up using WordStar on the Apple ][. It was great when all you had was an 80 column card, a green phosphor screen and a keyboard, but I was never sad to leave it behind when GUIs were invented. I have nostalgia for the time, sure, but not for that interface and the multi-key-stroke commands you had to learn by rote.
Each to their own, and of course finding an optimal writing environment is a very subjective thing -- but it's not like there aren't modern distraction-free writing interfaces that exist.
tonyedgecombe 2 hours ago [-]
I remember being quite excited at moving from a DOS based word processor (Word Perfect) to a GUI based one (Word). It looked like a step up.
In retrospect the quality, quantity and look and feel of the documents I created remained exactly the same.
user3939382 4 hours ago [-]
> leave it behind when GUIs were invented
GUIs were invented by the Xerox PARC team early 1970s, the IIc (I have one sitting on my desk :) was 1984. Totally beside your point so I apologize. I only mention it because PARC deserves a huge amount of credit.
paradoxyl 7 hours ago [-]
These programs are great for sitting down and writing with no distractions, but if you have a setup with directories full of word docs, text files, various graphics, even excel sheets all related to what you are working on that you need to refer to and cross-reference, they are less useful than an older version of Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice. And they are difficult to export, share... there's a reason we don't use typewriters anymore, or DOS programs whose output is confined within a single program.
onemoresoop 6 hours ago [-]
That looks like a different type of writing, perhaps research or business writing. Wordstar like editors that bring simplicity and a distraction free environment are best suited for creative writing.
jamiejquinn 3 hours ago [-]
I've found trying to find a distraction-free editor a distraction in itself. I'd bet money that most authors using an old word processor had some external reason to use it (cost, availability, editor compatability) and just stuck with what they know.
wodenokoto 6 hours ago [-]
A large fantasy adventure could easily have supporting documents with cities stats, characters, races, maps etc.
taffydavid 5 hours ago [-]
It could have, but George R R Martin famously uses Word Star and he surely has all that.
Then again he's also about a decade late with the next book
otherme123 2 hours ago [-]
GRRM could use clay tablet and it wouldn't make any difference on his output.
If you want output, Stephen King has used many processors, he doesn't care aparently as long as he can focus. Brandon Sanderson uses Word. The tool doesn't seem to matter.
paradoxyl 3 hours ago [-]
My point exactly; sci-fi you even more need to refer to accurate statistics whatever they may be.
bigfatkitten 2 hours ago [-]
Back then we were far less shy about printing things.
somat 1 hours ago [-]
After reviewing a few options I think "Just print it out" is still the best choice for long term archival. The density is not high however the hardware requirements being just one mark 1 eyeball(hardware that self replicates and has been stable for millions of years) makes it the clear winner in almost every case.
nylonstrung 5 hours ago [-]
In the same way as WordStar, there's a community of DOS WordPerfect 6.0 users who claim with some validity that it's still the best for writing prose
ErroneousBosh 4 hours ago [-]
In the UK at least it crops up a lot in legal circles.
Quite often solicitors have stuff on 3.5" or even 5.25" floppies that need read, converted from WordPerfect into something modern, and delivered as maybe a PDF or Word Doc.
Fortunately, solicitors tend not to be short of money (that they bill their client for) so they can often find "a guy who knows a guy" who can get that precious floppy onto a USB stick. Occasionally I am the guy who the guy knows, and it buys me the odd case of reasonably-priced wine.
amarant 3 hours ago [-]
Out of curiosity, what kind of documents are those typically? Surely UK businesses don't need to keep financial records for 40+ years (or however long it's been since floppies were common)?
bigfatkitten 2 hours ago [-]
Legal matters often have decades long histories. Especially things like deceased estates.
llagerlof 6 hours ago [-]
Interesting that the guy who wrote the article is an award-winning science fiction writer and also the author of FlashForward. They even made a TV series based on it.
Followed the UCSD p-system of putting command prompts on screen. Useful but also irritating to attention and screen real estate.
Usefully showing end-of-line markers. I remember thinking compared to dec-10 ROFF (which iirc proceeded nroff etc) it was both simpler and harder.
Used it, never liked it. Ed was the way.
jszymborski 8 hours ago [-]
I've long considered getting a netbook, slapping freedos on it and running WordStar or WordPerfect as a writing deck.
I'm not sure how I would get my files I create off the device since USB support isn't really a thing.
hakfoo 7 hours ago [-]
If you use a machine with an ISA slot, you can get a card with a chip called CH375 or CH376, which deploys a USB flash drive like a normal hard disc with either a loadable driver or option BIOS ROM. You can just pull out the entire drive and mount it on a normal Windows or Linux box.
I think the below-mentioned Pocket 376 might have one soldered-on already.
toast0 7 hours ago [-]
I thought freedos could use usb? Get something with built in ethernet or serial and you can transfer that way pretty easy too.
Or just run joe as jstar and close enough, maybe? I use joe for mostly everything, but I never used WordStar (well, I ran into it once)
kevin_thibedeau 8 hours ago [-]
It should run fine under dosemu with a minimal console only Linux.
kqr 5 hours ago [-]
I've had similar thoughts and ended up going with FreeBSD and no network connection for my use case. It's been great. It gives you some of the expected terminal ergonomics (and USB support) without the distractions.
- copy om.tmac to /usr/share/groff/current/tmac/om.tmac
- cd to examples/ directory and do some tests:
pdfmom -step -k mom-pdf.mom > mom-pdf.pdf
WIth jstar+groff+mom you can get something basically perfect.
"-step -k" it's just "-s -t -e -p -k", a bunch of options to enforce UTF-8,
some proper handing and whatnot.
incanus77 5 hours ago [-]
USB floppy drive on the modern computer side. I do this for old machines.
ErroneousBosh 4 hours ago [-]
CF card. Pop the card out, read it on the PC.
saltysalt 45 minutes ago [-]
Side topic, but that website is awesome.
poetaster 3 hours ago [-]
I fondly remember writing, mostly poetry, with wordstar on my first portable, the kaypro. I still have all the files. I believe it was CPM under the hood...
terminalgravity 6 hours ago [-]
I believe George R. R. Martin uses wordstar to write his books. I still hold a little hope that he will finish A Song of Ice and Fire series.
EFreethought 3 hours ago [-]
Maybe he hasn't finished it because he can't run WordStar anymore.
visarga 5 hours ago [-]
I think he is busy making sure AI doesn't finish it first. Can't have AIs trample in his fantasy land.
dessimus 2 hours ago [-]
He could have finished the series long before the Game of Thrones adaptation was in full swing, much less the general availability of LLMs. I think the HBO money made him care a lot less about ASoIaF mainline and went back to editing Wild Cards and other projects.
rrvsh 5 hours ago [-]
LLMs are really bad at worldbuilding outside of tropes. They're great at coming up with on the fly setpieces etc. halfway through a session, but for novel concepts they really dont work that well
zabzonk 6 hours ago [-]
Using its text mode, WordStar made a pretty good programming editor.
EagnaIonat 6 hours ago [-]
I still have memories of having to install Wordstar 2000 on 5 1/4" floppies. I think it was like 20 discs and painfully slow.
ares623 5 hours ago [-]
I started getting into typewriters. I could've repurposed an old X230 and disable/remove the network card physically. But I also wanted to stop staring at a screen when writing, so I gave the typewriter a try.
It's still early and I'm struggling to write more than a few lines at a time.
Not surprising from how I've been commenting "witty" one-liners in comment threads for over a decade.
I expect being able to write long-form with no backspacing will need a lot of time to learn.
But I want to take back my attention. If there's one thing I've learned in the last decade, is that one's attention is a precious resource and it's time to be more deliberate in how I spend it.
2b3a51 4 hours ago [-]
Reaching back decades, I used to do a first draft longhand on file paper, cross bits out, rewrite bits. Then bang it out on a typewriter. Then once over with a red pen the next day, and a complete re-type.
I'm not sure that I could work that way now, but it was more deliberate. Less 'drive by' thought.
"Our Writing Tools Are Also Working on Our Thoughts"
(I'm talking essays for University here not deathless prose).
Rotundo 4 hours ago [-]
I got back to writing longer texts by mentally separating writing and editing. When writing, just write. Even when you think the paragraph could be better, keep on writing.
Only start editing when a substantial piece is ready. Clean up some wording, rewrite a paragraph or two.
Even then, don't overdo it. There is always something to improve, you'll never be done that way. Good enough is good enough, hit publish and go on write the next thing.
ed_elliott_asc 3 hours ago [-]
Attention is like a limited amount, you start the day with 100 tokens, scrolling tick-tock for an hour? 25 tokens, deep working for an hour? 25 tokens - what do you have left to do and how many tokens does it take?
I’m trying more and more to not spend tokens on things that don’t help (social media), etc.
Gibbon1 3 hours ago [-]
The later version of Wordstar had a style template system which I thought was nice. So where Word Perfect had tags and more tags. Wordstar you just applied a predefined style to a block of text. I think somewhat like CSS.
I always preferred WordStar to WordPerfect, largely because WordStar's keybindings were easy to learn and remember. WordPerfect, by contrast, seemed to require keyboard templates, a manual, a cheat sheet, and a certain amount of divine intervention.
Each to their own, and of course finding an optimal writing environment is a very subjective thing -- but it's not like there aren't modern distraction-free writing interfaces that exist.
In retrospect the quality, quantity and look and feel of the documents I created remained exactly the same.
GUIs were invented by the Xerox PARC team early 1970s, the IIc (I have one sitting on my desk :) was 1984. Totally beside your point so I apologize. I only mention it because PARC deserves a huge amount of credit.
Then again he's also about a decade late with the next book
If you want output, Stephen King has used many processors, he doesn't care aparently as long as he can focus. Brandon Sanderson uses Word. The tool doesn't seem to matter.
Quite often solicitors have stuff on 3.5" or even 5.25" floppies that need read, converted from WordPerfect into something modern, and delivered as maybe a PDF or Word Doc.
Fortunately, solicitors tend not to be short of money (that they bill their client for) so they can often find "a guy who knows a guy" who can get that precious floppy onto a USB stick. Occasionally I am the guy who the guy knows, and it buys me the odd case of reasonably-priced wine.
Usefully showing end-of-line markers. I remember thinking compared to dec-10 ROFF (which iirc proceeded nroff etc) it was both simpler and harder.
Used it, never liked it. Ed was the way.
I'm not sure how I would get my files I create off the device since USB support isn't really a thing.
I think the below-mentioned Pocket 376 might have one soldered-on already.
Or just run joe as jstar and close enough, maybe? I use joe for mostly everything, but I never used WordStar (well, I ran into it once)
If any, check Groff with Mom macros, with does what you need with ease:
https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/
Online manual:
https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/momdoc/toc.html
For a quick command:
In order to get the last version:- Install groff in Hyperbola GNU/Linux (or any other) if is not installed. It's mandatory in a 99% of distros but not Hyperbola.
- get https://www.schaffter.ca/mom/mom-2.6_d.tar.gz
- uncompress it
- copy om.tmac to /usr/share/groff/current/tmac/om.tmac
- cd to examples/ directory and do some tests:
WIth jstar+groff+mom you can get something basically perfect. "-step -k" it's just "-s -t -e -p -k", a bunch of options to enforce UTF-8, some proper handing and whatnot.It's still early and I'm struggling to write more than a few lines at a time. Not surprising from how I've been commenting "witty" one-liners in comment threads for over a decade. I expect being able to write long-form with no backspacing will need a lot of time to learn.
But I want to take back my attention. If there's one thing I've learned in the last decade, is that one's attention is a precious resource and it's time to be more deliberate in how I spend it.
I'm not sure that I could work that way now, but it was more deliberate. Less 'drive by' thought.
"Our Writing Tools Are Also Working on Our Thoughts"
(I'm talking essays for University here not deathless prose).
Only start editing when a substantial piece is ready. Clean up some wording, rewrite a paragraph or two.
Even then, don't overdo it. There is always something to improve, you'll never be done that way. Good enough is good enough, hit publish and go on write the next thing.
I’m trying more and more to not spend tokens on things that don’t help (social media), etc.