I still use it once in a while.

(I’ve got a copy of WordStar’s Windows offering here someplace, too.)

I had to migrate to WPWin (V6 or 7) due to client pressure, it’s better than WSWin for casual users. WSWin was actually a Desktop Publishing program hacked to work as a word processor….

I don’t recall Pete’s NewWord being written in other than Assembler – the patching utility seems to have been left unchanged. (The original WordStar was extremely customizable. In essence, you could hack the machine code. A utility, called WSCHANGE, was supplied to make this more convenient. We used to call it “Dungeons and Dragons” in later versions – finding the right function in there was similar to convincing Windows Help to tell you about FORMAT if you tried “CLEAN” as a keyword….)

And, yes, I admit it…. I had a pirate copy of WS3.3. When WS4 (which was NewWord re-packaged) became available, I bought it, and all the DOS-based WS upgrades until the end of the line. WS7.0d was the last….

I think that the WYSIWYG aspect of Windows-based WP’s and the Windows printer system (v.s. the insanely complex printer handling in DOS WordStar – even though you could customize it!) is what really killed DOS WordStar….

However, did you guys know that almost all of Borland’s products (Turbo-whatever, SideKick, etc.) use the WordStar (properly, “Barnaby”) “diamond” keystrokes in their IDEs? I’ve found it all over the place. Although it’s a bit non-intuitive (a BIT?), everybody used to know it. Don’t forget that this was designed to run on a Teletype style keyboard, with no “F” keys – just some additional “Shift” type keys.

I was part of the CompuServe WordStar forum for a long time, and briefly part of a “consumer” test advisory panel.

One thing I don’t miss – having to sit and watch six to ten (or more) diskets grind into the system while trying to install it.

The final indignity for WordStar’s Windows offering, I think, which once retailed for over $200, was to find a somewhat cut-down and unsupported version on an under $20 CD in a bargain bin. This wasn’t just WSWin “remaindered” – somebody bought a license and re-packaged it.

FWIW, in the “what ever happened to” vein, my TRS-80 Model 4 ended up first as an SMDR (i.e., “what number did extension 12 just call”) data logger on a telephone system, and then later as a printer buffer for a PC….

Regards,

Stu.

What about Professional Write for DOS? I believe it was also release for NeXT. Where did Professional Write sit in the word processing market? My father still uses an old version of this program on an 8088 XT machine for writing reports, keeping track of billing and taxes, and doing ASCII based drawing.

I also remember when you called Wordperfect for tech support, and they had a D.J. playing music and directing traffic while you waited:
“There’s three people lined up waiting for help with printer problems, and just two waiting for Page Formatting !” What a hoot!

A great series! Thanks for posting this stuff.

I was working in the Albany, California Computerland store when Wordstar was being developed. I remember Seymour Rubenstein coming in to test it on the great variety of printers we stocked, especially the high class “daisy wheel” ones.

I also remember John Draper, AKA Cap’n Crunch, doing the same thing with Easy Writer, which he developed for the IBM PC when it first appeared on the market.

That’s amazing that sales got as high as $70M back in ’84! I was still a punky highschool student using AppleWriter on an Apple ][ at that time, thinking I was all hi-tech savvy… haha!

I despised Word Perfect… it seemed kind of like a clone of multimate, which itself was a clone of a Wang. To me, MS-Word 5.0 was the real successor to Wordstar (although the subsequent windows version of Word SUCKED.)

He said Wang. Huhhhh huhhh. Lots of marketing potential there. WangWord. WangWord for Windows.

Huhhh huhhh.

Then there was the Lexbook notebook that I found a couple of years ago …