![dos wordstar 7 dos wordstar 7](https://www.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2021/11/windows-7-end-support-extended-security-updates.png)
Not one time in all those hours did it fail. I used it all day, every day, for two or three full-time years, pushing it into some absolutely bizarre contortions, and it never crashed once. That program was also seriously bulletproof. It took forever to do them, but they came out literally perfect. If you made a mistake, fixing and reprinting a form was trivial, and it was nearly impossible to tell that my duplicate forms weren't originals. Instead of one, possibly flawed form every ten minutes, you could do several perfect ones per minute. This was so massively superior to carbon paper on a typewriter that the time investment was totally worthwhile. This was extremely labor-intensive, taking a week or more to duplicate a given document, but then we gained the ability to use mail-merge to bulk-produce perfect copies on a laser printer. But, god, you could do freaking anything with that program. As someone who lived in it: yes, its interface was awful.Īny program that seriously needs a cheat sheet loaded onto your keyboard has got issues. What I actually did learn, back in the day, was WordPerfect. I could easily see myself still using it today. Had I learned Wordstar first, and assuming I hadn't crippled myself with the constant control-reaching before remapping keys got so easy (swapping capslock and control would be very important, I would think, if you were at all prone to RSI). That sounds vaguely like a modeless vim not quite as powerful, since it apparently lacks counts before commands, but much easier to learn. So that's not going to happen.īut I do now have a bit of a nostalgia itch that I need to scratch with that FreeDOS VM.
![dos wordstar 7 dos wordstar 7](http://www.wordstar.org/images/WordStar/wsdos/star_exchange/function_key_template.jpg)
I can't see myself downloading an old version of WordStar and running it up in my FreeDOS VM. I honestly don't remember if WordPerfect 5.1 had comments, and if it did I could use them instead - but for a manuscript, the WordStar solution is definitely better. But things like not printing a line starting with. I'm not sure I would have been more productive in WordStar - and I'm fairly certain my documents wouldn't have looked as good. The DOS versions of WordStar I used were just not to my liking, and WordPerfect 5.1 could do layouts that was far better than any other word processor - closing on DTP.Īs I was (mostly) writing RPG adventures for me and my friends, having sidebars and boxes was important - WordPerfect was just better at that.īut this article, despite coming to my attention around 25 years too late, gives me thought for pause. I'll happily admit I'm more of a WordPerfect fan than WordStar.