"Compared to it, Microsoft Word is pure madness"—Anne Rice. //

WordStar's most recent claim to fame might be that it's the word processing application on which George R.R. Martin is still not finishing A Song of Ice and Fire.

But many writers loved and still love WordStar, a word processor notably good for actual writing. As computers moved on from DOS to Windows, and word programs grew to encompass features that strayed far from organizing words on a page, WordStar hung back, whether in DOS emulation or in the hearts of its die-hard fans.

One of those fans is Robert J. Sawyer, an award-winning science fiction author still using the program last updated in 1992. Deciding that the app is now "abandonware," Sawyer recently put together as complete a version of WordStar 7 as might exist. He bundled together over 1,000 pages of scanned manuals that came with WordStar, related utilities, his own README guidance, ready-to-run versions of DOSBox-X and VDosPlus, and WordStar 7 Rev. D and posted them on his website as the "Complete WordStar 7.0 Archive."

https://sfwriter.com/ws7.htm //

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comingInFromCold said:
I like sticking with the stuff I'm comfortable with, but I can't for the life of me understand why anyone can put up, let alone love those dos, command based word editor. I mean, the advent of mouse and GUI was an improvement (IMO). If one must avoid 21st century bloatware, even something like notepad++ could do the job. Ah well different strokes for different folks i guess

Mouse motion is limited to a couple of fixed finger inputs, a scroll wheel and wrist motion. Keeping both hands on the keyboard lets you parallelize more of the input - key when most of the input is alphanumeric with a smattering of punctuation. Adding in key sequences that manipulate the cursor or activate functions can make a fast typist blindingly fast at input and editing.

If you take someone who types at 120 wpm and can keep both hands on the keyboard continuously, they can whip out a page in literally two minutes. If not interrupted, that means they could literally do a manuscript for a 250 page novel in a day.