wlewisiii
Veteran
Once upon a time, even before there was an IBM PC or MS-DOS there were still other Personal Computers and there was C/PM to manage your disk drives on them. Even the Apple II could have a card with a Z80 and C/PM on it with access to all of that world of software.
And starting in 1978 there was Wordstar as the best word processor available. It would grow and mutate, be ported a number of times to Dos and Windows into some very strange forms. Still, by it's final release - WordStar for DOS 7.0 Rev. D - would come out in December 1992 - it was a solid and polished alternative that did what you wanted, not what someone had decided you wanted.
The program has never been updated since, and the company that made it has been defunct for decades; the program is abandonware. At the time that 7.0D came out I was working as the Assistant General Manager at a Walden Software Store (anyone remember _that_ shortlived chain?) and made my bootleg legitimate because even then, to me, it was still the reigning king of the word processors.
And I still use it, and Sonnar Brian I understand uses an earlier version (version 6). Several famous authors still prefer it over more modern software and with the news that Microsoft has now enabled Word to scrape your writing and send it back to Redmond to train their AI unless you jump through lots of hoops to opt out, there is even less reason to want to use their bloatware.
Sure you could use Libre Office and many do chose to. When absolute interoperability is needed, I do as well. However, there is still a place in the world for the classics. With modern emulation technology like DOSBox-X, it can run fine on DOS, Windows, Linux and Macintosh without problem or change. The postscript is still usable by modern printers. For a program from 1992, it remains better than most other 32 year old packages!
The program had been available as install disks on "Abandonware" websites but they can be difficult to use and can be virus/malware infested for the unwary. In addion, unless you still had everything memorized, the lack of manuals was a real challenge. To fill this void, Canadian SF author (Hugo & Nebula winner) Robert J. Sawyer has stepped up with his package:
And starting in 1978 there was Wordstar as the best word processor available. It would grow and mutate, be ported a number of times to Dos and Windows into some very strange forms. Still, by it's final release - WordStar for DOS 7.0 Rev. D - would come out in December 1992 - it was a solid and polished alternative that did what you wanted, not what someone had decided you wanted.
The program has never been updated since, and the company that made it has been defunct for decades; the program is abandonware. At the time that 7.0D came out I was working as the Assistant General Manager at a Walden Software Store (anyone remember _that_ shortlived chain?) and made my bootleg legitimate because even then, to me, it was still the reigning king of the word processors.
And I still use it, and Sonnar Brian I understand uses an earlier version (version 6). Several famous authors still prefer it over more modern software and with the news that Microsoft has now enabled Word to scrape your writing and send it back to Redmond to train their AI unless you jump through lots of hoops to opt out, there is even less reason to want to use their bloatware.
Sure you could use Libre Office and many do chose to. When absolute interoperability is needed, I do as well. However, there is still a place in the world for the classics. With modern emulation technology like DOSBox-X, it can run fine on DOS, Windows, Linux and Macintosh without problem or change. The postscript is still usable by modern printers. For a program from 1992, it remains better than most other 32 year old packages!
The program had been available as install disks on "Abandonware" websites but they can be difficult to use and can be virus/malware infested for the unwary. In addion, unless you still had everything memorized, the lack of manuals was a real challenge. To fill this void, Canadian SF author (Hugo & Nebula winner) Robert J. Sawyer has stepped up with his package:
