4 ms·

From the article: The reasons for this WordPerfect for DOS, in the opinion of many knowledgeable users, is still the greatest program ever written. Some of it

From the article: The reasons for this WordPerfect for DOS, in the opinion of many knowledgeable users, is still the greatest program ever written. Some of its features have not been matched even by the latest Windows software, and its interface remains unequaled for efficiency and elegance. tl;dr; We're vi and we know it.

onychomys 6y ago
Does make one wonder just which features he's talking about here. It's been probably 30 years since I used WP for DOS, so I don't quite remember how it all worked, but I have trouble believing there's anything all that great about it.
- llarsson 6y ago
  If you have decades worth of muscle memory invested in it, you bet it is one of the best programs out there... for you. This is how I feel about vim, at any rate.
- snomad 6y ago
  Reveal codes. They had a box below main editor that everyone used to go in and edit codes for outlines, indentation, page breaks, etc. Super simple. https://images.pcworld.com/reviews/graphics/125257-2406p075-2b.gif https://images.pcworld.com/reviews/graphics/125257-2406p075-...
  - magicalhippo 6y ago
    It's a feature I miss every time I use Word. It's so simple, yet so effective.
  - nothis 6y ago
    Word literally has this. Certainly InDesign.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      Word Perfect as I recall actually let you directly manipulate those codes though. Think of it a bit like toggling between an edit view and raw HTML. Personally, I never liked WordPerfect, nor did I use it much. I used a lot of different word processors but mostly ended up standardizing on Microsoft Word (well pre-Windows) for personal use.
    - EricE 6y ago
      Word has nothing like it. Word has a filtered view of codes. WP laid it all bare. Every code and nuance was presented. Nothing was filtered or interpreted. I recovered many a screwed up document that you would just have to redo in Word if it ever got into such a state. I still miss a real reveal codes in Word. There was a public outcry for it back in the day and a snotty response from a Microsoft PM - wish I could remember enough details to see if I could find it but I'm convinced MS never really delivered a true reveal codes purely out of spite.
  - boudewijnrempt 6y ago
    Reveal codes was a crutch. There was nothing great about it, no matter how much it's wrapped in a nostalgic haze now. It's basically telling people "we cannot make this wordprocessor work reliably, please code up your text yourself once things go wrong". And yes, I've used WordPerfect from 4.0 to 7.something on Dos, Windows, various unices and Linux.
    - nocman 6y ago
      > Reveal codes was a crutch. So do you think the inspector in modern browsers, or "view source" are a crutch then? I wholeheartedly disagree with this assertion, and there is absolutely no "nostalgic haze" clouding my vision. While I do agree that sometimes pulling up "reveal codes" could have revealed formatting problems caused by a bug in Wordperfect, the difference between WP and MS Word, was that you could actually DO something quick to fix the problem, rather than in Word, where the answer was often "something is royally screwed up -- you get to start over now".
- Tomte 6y ago
  The usual suspects are: * reveal codes (a second mode, where you can see typographic and layout commands interspersed with the text itself, a bit like HTML tags) * templates for judicial submissions (many US courts enforce strict layout and typographic rules, and WP is said to cater to that)
  - jagged-chisel 6y ago
    > * reveal codes MS Word used to do this. Does it not now? (I don't use Word...) > ... many US courts enforce strict layout and typographic rules, and WP is said to cater to that Now this is a good reason. No one wants to redo that work for another word processor every time a new version changes formatting rules.
    - maxerickson 6y ago
      Word will show formatting marks and the contents of fields. I don't know WordPerfect so I can't make a comparison.
      - __s 6y ago
        It doesn't compare: https://www.howtogeek.com/104940/reveal-formatting-in-word-2010 https://www.howtogeek.com/104940/reveal-formatting-in-word-2... https://www.wordperfect.com/en/pages/items/1500650.html https://www.wordperfect.com/en/pages/items/1500650.html
    - unilynx 6y ago
      > MS Word used to do this. Does it not now? (I don't use Word...) Are you sure about that? At least since Word 95, it used what you could call a two-dimensional markup system - paragraphs and character formatting was separated, and character formatting could span over paragraph starts and ends. for example, the formatting codes could say "from character position 5 in paragraph one to character position 2 in paragraph two, set bold to opposite setting of whatever was in the stylesheet of the paragraph". that would be very hard to present in a WP-like 'reveal codes' view (or in HTML, for that matter)
lifthrasiir 6y ago
Running WPDOS in a web browser with a cloud storage (well, periodic memory snapshots) would be the best choice for who still wants it today. We already had multiple solutions for vi...
- lproven 6y ago
  It really wouldn't. The entire point of this exercise is that it is tiny and blindingly fast. Running it inside a bloated whole-system emulator, in a bloated failure-prone semi-interpreted language, inside a bloated failure-prone app like any modern web browser, is like proposing replacing a bicycle with a shipping container containing an exercise bike, with a VR headset, mounted on the back of a flatbed articulated truck. Which has a broken gearbox and no tyres and can only scrape screaming and skidding along the road, enveloped in flames and smoke.
  - lifthrasiir 6y ago
    Well, it does solve the problem of backup. Both softwares and hardwares had been and continue to be fragile; it will be a constant problem unless you ditch electronics and go with typewriters (which are indeed fine alternatives).
    - lproven 6y ago
      I hear this justification a lot. It's not really true: it's generalising a simple point until it no longer holds. Yes, all software is complex and fallible. But not all software is equal. If you strip away half a dozen layers of indirection and translation, and replace gigs of code with hundreds of kilobytes of it, then there are dramatic differences. In performance, in reliability, in robustness, in maintainability, in safety. WordPerfect for DOS, like all DOS apps, had to run in under 640 KB of usable memory -- 2/3 of a meg -- and it shared that with the OS. However, that OS went through 20 years of development and polishing and it was very solid at the end. WordPerfect ran on about a dozen different OSes and CPUs, and as such it was very clean, exceptionally thoroughly tested and debugged software. When you have a honed, polished single-function app -- a word processor and nothing else -- that runs in 200-300KB of memory, that can perform well on an 8MHz CPU, running on a 30-40KB OS that runs well on kit half that speed, and you run it on 21st century hardware, the result achieves a level of performance that is literally impossible with any 21st century OS with all its multitasking and multithreading and millions of lines of poorly-integrated code.
flatiron 6y ago
I totally get using vi to write a book or something on an air gapped computer. No distractions. But not sure about WordPerfect. To each their own though.
- taviso 6y ago
  Vi is a text editor, not a word processor. The important difference (for me) is that a word processor understands proportional font geometries and physical page dimensions, so I can layout the page interactively. For example, I have some text that I want to fit on a single page of A4 in Helvetica 12pt, and I'm willing to edit it until it fits. I think that's a really hard problem to solve in a text editor, but it's trivial in a word processor. I also use WordPerfect for DOS, because it's a full-featured word processor that you can use in a terminal (I think the author of this site uses it in graphical mode, but I prefer to use it in an xterm). Here's a screenshot, notice how WordPerfect knows where the text will wrap. https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1303841149421891584 https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1303841149421891584

onychomys 6y ago

Does make one wonder just which features he's talking about here. It's been probably 30 years since I used WP for DOS, so I don't quite remember how it all worked, but I have trouble believing there's anything all that great about it.

llarsson 6y ago
If you have decades worth of muscle memory invested in it, you bet it is one of the best programs out there... for you. This is how I feel about vim, at any rate.
snomad 6y ago
Reveal codes. They had a box below main editor that everyone used to go in and edit codes for outlines, indentation, page breaks, etc. Super simple. https://images.pcworld.com/reviews/graphics/125257-2406p075-2b.gif https://images.pcworld.com/reviews/graphics/125257-2406p075-...
- magicalhippo 6y ago
  It's a feature I miss every time I use Word. It's so simple, yet so effective.
- nothis 6y ago
  Word literally has this. Certainly InDesign.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    Word Perfect as I recall actually let you directly manipulate those codes though. Think of it a bit like toggling between an edit view and raw HTML. Personally, I never liked WordPerfect, nor did I use it much. I used a lot of different word processors but mostly ended up standardizing on Microsoft Word (well pre-Windows) for personal use.
  - EricE 6y ago
    Word has nothing like it. Word has a filtered view of codes. WP laid it all bare. Every code and nuance was presented. Nothing was filtered or interpreted. I recovered many a screwed up document that you would just have to redo in Word if it ever got into such a state. I still miss a real reveal codes in Word. There was a public outcry for it back in the day and a snotty response from a Microsoft PM - wish I could remember enough details to see if I could find it but I'm convinced MS never really delivered a true reveal codes purely out of spite.
- boudewijnrempt 6y ago
  Reveal codes was a crutch. There was nothing great about it, no matter how much it's wrapped in a nostalgic haze now. It's basically telling people "we cannot make this wordprocessor work reliably, please code up your text yourself once things go wrong". And yes, I've used WordPerfect from 4.0 to 7.something on Dos, Windows, various unices and Linux.
  - nocman 6y ago
    > Reveal codes was a crutch. So do you think the inspector in modern browsers, or "view source" are a crutch then? I wholeheartedly disagree with this assertion, and there is absolutely no "nostalgic haze" clouding my vision. While I do agree that sometimes pulling up "reveal codes" could have revealed formatting problems caused by a bug in Wordperfect, the difference between WP and MS Word, was that you could actually DO something quick to fix the problem, rather than in Word, where the answer was often "something is royally screwed up -- you get to start over now".
Tomte 6y ago
The usual suspects are: * reveal codes (a second mode, where you can see typographic and layout commands interspersed with the text itself, a bit like HTML tags) * templates for judicial submissions (many US courts enforce strict layout and typographic rules, and WP is said to cater to that)
- jagged-chisel 6y ago
  > * reveal codes MS Word used to do this. Does it not now? (I don't use Word...) > ... many US courts enforce strict layout and typographic rules, and WP is said to cater to that Now this is a good reason. No one wants to redo that work for another word processor every time a new version changes formatting rules.
  - maxerickson 6y ago
    Word will show formatting marks and the contents of fields. I don't know WordPerfect so I can't make a comparison.
    - __s 6y ago
      It doesn't compare: https://www.howtogeek.com/104940/reveal-formatting-in-word-2010 https://www.howtogeek.com/104940/reveal-formatting-in-word-2... https://www.wordperfect.com/en/pages/items/1500650.html https://www.wordperfect.com/en/pages/items/1500650.html
  - unilynx 6y ago
    > MS Word used to do this. Does it not now? (I don't use Word...) Are you sure about that? At least since Word 95, it used what you could call a two-dimensional markup system - paragraphs and character formatting was separated, and character formatting could span over paragraph starts and ends. for example, the formatting codes could say "from character position 5 in paragraph one to character position 2 in paragraph two, set bold to opposite setting of whatever was in the stylesheet of the paragraph". that would be very hard to present in a WP-like 'reveal codes' view (or in HTML, for that matter)

lifthrasiir 6y ago

Running WPDOS in a web browser with a cloud storage (well, periodic memory snapshots) would be the best choice for who still wants it today. We already had multiple solutions for vi...

lproven 6y ago
It really wouldn't. The entire point of this exercise is that it is tiny and blindingly fast. Running it inside a bloated whole-system emulator, in a bloated failure-prone semi-interpreted language, inside a bloated failure-prone app like any modern web browser, is like proposing replacing a bicycle with a shipping container containing an exercise bike, with a VR headset, mounted on the back of a flatbed articulated truck. Which has a broken gearbox and no tyres and can only scrape screaming and skidding along the road, enveloped in flames and smoke.
- lifthrasiir 6y ago
  Well, it does solve the problem of backup. Both softwares and hardwares had been and continue to be fragile; it will be a constant problem unless you ditch electronics and go with typewriters (which are indeed fine alternatives).
  - lproven 6y ago
    I hear this justification a lot. It's not really true: it's generalising a simple point until it no longer holds. Yes, all software is complex and fallible. But not all software is equal. If you strip away half a dozen layers of indirection and translation, and replace gigs of code with hundreds of kilobytes of it, then there are dramatic differences. In performance, in reliability, in robustness, in maintainability, in safety. WordPerfect for DOS, like all DOS apps, had to run in under 640 KB of usable memory -- 2/3 of a meg -- and it shared that with the OS. However, that OS went through 20 years of development and polishing and it was very solid at the end. WordPerfect ran on about a dozen different OSes and CPUs, and as such it was very clean, exceptionally thoroughly tested and debugged software. When you have a honed, polished single-function app -- a word processor and nothing else -- that runs in 200-300KB of memory, that can perform well on an 8MHz CPU, running on a 30-40KB OS that runs well on kit half that speed, and you run it on 21st century hardware, the result achieves a level of performance that is literally impossible with any 21st century OS with all its multitasking and multithreading and millions of lines of poorly-integrated code.

flatiron 6y ago

I totally get using vi to write a book or something on an air gapped computer. No distractions. But not sure about WordPerfect. To each their own though.

taviso 6y ago
Vi is a text editor, not a word processor. The important difference (for me) is that a word processor understands proportional font geometries and physical page dimensions, so I can layout the page interactively. For example, I have some text that I want to fit on a single page of A4 in Helvetica 12pt, and I'm willing to edit it until it fits. I think that's a really hard problem to solve in a text editor, but it's trivial in a word processor. I also use WordPerfect for DOS, because it's a full-featured word processor that you can use in a terminal (I think the author of this site uses it in graphical mode, but I prefer to use it in an xterm). Here's a screenshot, notice how WordPerfect knows where the text will wrap. https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1303841149421891584 https://twitter.com/taviso/status/1303841149421891584