4 ms·

I began using WordStar in 1980 for development (in "non-document mode") on CP/M. It was the best thing ever available for that platform, and it had some featur

I began using WordStar in 1980 for development (in "non-document mode") on CP/M. It was the best thing ever available for that platform, and it had some features that I've never seen duplicated elsewhere (such as "column mode" cut and paste). Back when I was using it, the standard computer keyboard had the "control" key directly to the left of the "A" key (where the "Caps Lock" key is now). I was never happy that IBM moved the control key, and I was even less happy when Sun Microsystems followed suit (but for a while you could still order the Sun keyboards with the control key in the right place). I got in bad habit of moving my left hand one key left so I could use my left pinky to hold control down while using the "magic diamond" to move the cursor around. It took me many years to un-learn that bad habit. By 1996 (when this article was written) WordStar had already committed suicide by pushing "WordStar 2000" on everybody, which completely broke the old user interface.

hguant 6y ago
> Back when I was using it, the standard computer keyboard had the "control" key directly to the left of the "A" key (where the "Caps Lock" key is now). One of the first things I do is rebind caps to control - I've never understood the need for a caps lock key
hilbert42 6y ago
" I was never happy that IBM moved the control key, and I was even less happy when Sun Microsystems followed suit (but for a while you could still order the Sun keyboards with the control key in the right place)" You weren't alone, that was contentious because of WordStar's keystrokes and other earlier terminals. Incidentally, I first entered text into WordStar using a VT100 terminal connected to a Godbout S100 dual-CPU (8085/8086) computer. "By 1996 (when this article was written) WordStar had already committed suicide by pushing "WordStar 2000" on everybody, which completely broke the old user interface." Note my earlier post re my conversation with Seymour Rubinstein. Many took him to task over the 'suicidal' change.
varjag 6y ago
> "column mode" cut and paste Emacs (of course) has rectangles.
- setpatchaddress 6y ago
  For the graphically oriented, TextMate has had columnar cursor and clipboard operations since 2005, IIRC, and recent versions of Xcode also have a good implementation.
faster 6y ago
In my first job (early 80s), we wrote 6809 assembly in Wordstar using non-document mode. It worked very well for that purpose. We had a Molecular Supermicro 32, basically a card cage for Z80 boards running CP/M and sharing a small (large at the time!) hard drive. My first task there was pulling serial cables to the engineering lab to hook up terminals. We had a band printer for program listings (aka backups) and a ball printer for docs. Good times.

hguant 6y ago

> Back when I was using it, the standard computer keyboard had the "control" key directly to the left of the "A" key (where the "Caps Lock" key is now). One of the first things I do is rebind caps to control - I've never understood the need for a caps lock key

hilbert42 6y ago

" I was never happy that IBM moved the control key, and I was even less happy when Sun Microsystems followed suit (but for a while you could still order the Sun keyboards with the control key in the right place)" You weren't alone, that was contentious because of WordStar's keystrokes and other earlier terminals. Incidentally, I first entered text into WordStar using a VT100 terminal connected to a Godbout S100 dual-CPU (8085/8086) computer. "By 1996 (when this article was written) WordStar had already committed suicide by pushing "WordStar 2000" on everybody, which completely broke the old user interface." Note my earlier post re my conversation with Seymour Rubinstein. Many took him to task over the 'suicidal' change.

varjag 6y ago

> "column mode" cut and paste Emacs (of course) has rectangles.

setpatchaddress 6y ago
For the graphically oriented, TextMate has had columnar cursor and clipboard operations since 2005, IIRC, and recent versions of Xcode also have a good implementation.

faster 6y ago

In my first job (early 80s), we wrote 6809 assembly in Wordstar using non-document mode. It worked very well for that purpose. We had a Molecular Supermicro 32, basically a card cage for Z80 boards running CP/M and sharing a small (large at the time!) hard drive. My first task there was pulling serial cables to the engineering lab to hook up terminals. We had a band printer for program listings (aka backups) and a ball printer for docs. Good times.