13 ms·

WordTsar, a WordStar Clone

203 points by rhabarba 5y ago

vagrantJin 5y ago
Silly me. I read that as Worldstar
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  Sadly, that comes up in any search for Wordstar or WordTsar.
  - oogetyboogety 5y ago
    I thought it was a new worldstarhiphop star destined to take over the game
- keiferski 5y ago
  Same here. Then I started thinking, what does a WorldStar alternative look like?
- eutropia 5y ago
  I thought this was going to be a dashcams only version of WorldStar.
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Lol I never even heard of worldstar XD
neom 5y ago
"WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It dominated the market in the early and mid-1980s, succeeding the market leader Electric Pencil. It was published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Seymour I. Rubinstein was the principal owner of the company, and Rob Barnaby was the sole author of the early versions of the program. Starting with WordStar 4.0, the program was built on new code written principally by Peter Mierau." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar
- rhabarba 5y ago
  Yes. And it still is less annoying to use than some of its successors. (Your mileage is intended to vary.)
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Yeah like WordPerfect. I remember all those strips people used to stick on their keyboards to remember all the weird function key combinations :) Though the "submerged" screen (where you could see all the markup control codes, not sure what it was called in the English feature) was a handy feature I kinda miss in modern word processors.
    - lproven 5y ago
      It was called "reveal codes". http://wordperfect.helpmax.net/en/creating-and-managing-documents/viewing-and-navigating-documents/using-reveal-codes/ http://wordperfect.helpmax.net/en/creating-and-managing-docu...
      - rhabarba 5y ago
        To be precise, it still is and Corel actively advertises it.
- sswaner 5y ago
  The "boring" computer my parents bought in the 80's was a KayPro II with three programs - WordStar, CalcStar, and DataStar. It was great for me to learn those programs. The structure of text formatting in WordStar made HTML really easy to learn a decade later. I am excited to see if the WordStar keyboard commands come back easily to me after 35 years.
thomasfl 5y ago
+1 for the funny, glorious and mighty name.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  LOL. Thanks.
xgulfie 5y ago
Someone tell George RR Martin
- 7thaccount 5y ago
  My thoughts exactly.
- rhabarba 5y ago
  WordTsar won’t run on DOS!
  - eddieh 5y ago
    That's a shame. Many of the WordStar holdouts actually like their writing machine to be some old reliable computer without modern distractions. It isn't just the software, it is the whole experience. It runs one program at a time, no internet, now notifications, just reliable typing on what's probably a mechanical keyboard that has exactly the right feel.
    - technofiend 5y ago
      Unicomp makes leaf spring switch keyboards that are the modern day equivalent of IBM's beloved PC keyboards. They are too loud for a shared work environment but perfect for home use, assuming you don't multitask during a meeting with your mic on, anyway.
      - rhabarba 5y ago
        Leaf springs are different switches. Unicomp makes buckling spring keyboards - which are not "the equivalent" of IBM's Model M keyboards, but they actually are the current brand which makes the original Model M keyboards. (They were branded "Lexmark" earlier - after IBM had founded a spin-off company for them.) They have become less sturdy over the years though.
        technofiend 5y ago
loloquwowndueo 5y ago
Robert j. Sawyer is also a prominent wordstar diehard who ought to be interested in this project :) he wrote an interesting rationale for his use of wordstar. https://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm https://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm I wonder if learning proper use of vim motions would cover most of these use cases today :)
- eddieh 5y ago
  Many authors use WordStar. Here is George R. R. Martin taking about WordStar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg I think, and I believe it has been suggested to Robert J. Sawyer, that Emacs keys are very similar to WordStar in the use of cords (or prefixed keystrokes). WordStar has ^Q as a prefix whereas Emacs has ^x, ^c, and ^h, etc. [edit] Add bit about Emacs
  - alpaca128 5y ago
    Both Vim and Emacs can bind almost any(1) kind of input with the right configuration. Emacs has a lot of them in the default configuration, Vim just a bit using e.g. the leader key and Ctrl-W for window/split navigation. But in the end it's about efficient keyboard-focused controls and it seems for many WordStar was the first one that fit the bill. (1) except inputs consisting of multiple keys at once; terminals don't detect keyup/keydown events. Maybe Emacs can do it, I'm not familiar enough to know.
    - rhabarba 5y ago
      Emacs mostly uses key chords, not unlike WordStar, but its document setting capabilities are limited out of the box.
    - ngcc_hk 5y ago
      Can vim do document and book oriented content like paragraph flow etc ?
- Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
  This rationale has completely convinced me that we will never see any new ASOIAF books from George Martin: even this very productive tool didn't help him finish new book in over a decade.
wila 5y ago
Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189
- rhabarba 5y ago
  Missed that! Sorry.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Older than a year, so not a problem
  - wila 5y ago
    No problem at all. The only reason I mentioned the earlier discussion is because I thought it had some interesting comments.
gaius_baltar 5y ago
Seems nice and I will give it a try! Now a question: there is some obvious reason for using AGPL for a desktop GUI application (not a web app, a server, etc.)? AGPL would be my license to go in the later cases, so it would protect the project from being SaaSSed, but I could not find an advantage for graphical desktop apps yet.
- rhabarba 5y ago
  I would guess that it’s because of the Qt libraries, but this is just an assumption.
  - detaro 5y ago
    Using Qt does not require you to use (A)GPL, and it had that license before it used Qt.
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Desktop GUI apps can be SaaSed by tying them to a virtual desktop. Or it could be using AGPL components.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  I honestly can't remember why I chose the AGPL.
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    Lots of desktop programs are being turned into “VNC in your browser”-type things. Maybe that was it?
adamw2k 5y ago
Brings me back to the days of using Word Perfect with a keyboard overlay...
mongol 5y ago
Are WordStar keyboard shortcuts resembling those commonly used today? Or are they their own heritage?
- rhabarba 5y ago
  They predate those commonly used today.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  http://wordstar.org/index.php/wsemu-documentation/wsemu-commands-and-menus/1-wordstar-emulator-full-version-command-list#:~:text=Command%20List%20%28Full%20Version%29%20%20%20Keystroke%20,%20Character%20Right%20%2063%20more%20rows%20 http://wordstar.org/index.php/wsemu-documentation/wsemu-comm...
zabzonk 5y ago
WordStar was a really good programming editor, if you put into text mode. I wrote a lot of C and assembler code using it back in the 1980s. And it was a good word processor - much easier to get to grips with than WordPerfect, IMHO.
- toast0 5y ago
  I use JOE as my programming (and general purpose) editor, which is modeled after WordStar in a lot of ways. Once, I happened upon a WordStar installation and was able to use it just fine, because I already knew the concepts (I think the command prefix isn't ^K though, so it felt a bit off?)
  - geraldbrandt 5y ago
    Joe (or jstar) is my go to console editor.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      Does it still save bak files everywhere though? I used it for a while and it littered folders everywhere with them as it doesn't clean them up. I tried turning it off but an update came through that changed something and turned it back on, and then I came across nano which felt nicer :)
      - toast0 5y ago
        I actually like those ~ files everywhere, because it makes for an easy and (almost) universal undo. But it does make a mess, and I understand why you might not want them. I would be surprised if you can't turn them off, though... and I'm even more surprised they came back after an update, I wonder if you set it in the system config and not a personal config, so it got overwritten when you updated; but possibly the config value changed names too. :( That's very frustrating, and I hope nano treats you well.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  WordTsar doesn't do non-document mode... though I'm thinking about it.
dotancohen 5y ago
The site mentions UTF-8 support. Can anyone take a screenshot of this so I could see if it's worth compiling: שלום, עולם! I'd be interested in ODT support as well, but there seems to be no mention on the site so I'm assuming that LibreOffice compatibility is right out.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  It's still in Alpha and coded by one guy (me). Give it time...
  - dotancohen 5y ago
    Then I'll just take the opportunity to say thank you. I'm personally very happy with VIM and Markdown, but I know a lot of people loved Wordstar and I fear for the day when VIM will be where Wordstar is now.
    - MonkeyClub 5y ago
      Don't say such things without a trigger warning first :) Though vi has a good track record, and hopefully will be with is for a long time still.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  If you're on twitter, search for the tag #wordtsar. There's some screen shots there.
  - rhabarba 5y ago
    My timeline does not have any WordTsar users yet. Time to change that!
skyfaller 5y ago
Why host the project on SourceForge? Just force of habit? Other code forges don't look better enough to justify the effort of moving? Or are there actively good things about SourceForge these days?
- rob74 5y ago
  Are you asking the author(s) of a project that emulates a decades-old word processor so that people don't have to learn to use a newer word processor to learn to use a newer code hosting platform? I guess this project is the very embodiment of "force of habit"...
  - bdcravens 5y ago
    MS-DOS 1.25 (1983) is on Github https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
    - schaefer 5y ago
      Ah, but is git on dos 1.25? Asking for a friend.
- IshKebab 5y ago
  There are a fair number of projects from the old days that just never bothered to move. I don't think anyone chooses to host new projects there
- 29athrowaway 5y ago
  Was not SourceForge bundling malware with open source project releases? That was the moment when I decided to drop SourceForge forever.
  - geraldbrandt 5y ago
    That changed long ago.
  - tssva 5y ago
protomyth 5y ago
Its funny, but I bet more people had the Wordstar keyboard shortcuts in muscle memory than actually used Wordstar.
- bombcar 5y ago
  I knew a few people who used Lotus 1-2-3 shortcuts for excel even though they had never used 1-2-3.
- kcartlidge 5y ago
  I'm one of them. Despite being a big fan of WordPerfect, I still have WordStar muscle memory from the days of Borland IDEs (starting with Turbo Pascal 3).
29athrowaway 5y ago
On WordPerfect 6.2 you could switch between text mode UI, a DOS GUI and a Windows GUI.
dang 5y ago
As wila pointed out already, there was a previous thread about this project. (Reposts are fine on HN after a year, so this is not a problem - see the FAQ.) Maybe worth hauling out the comprehensive WordStar list though: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26370252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26370252 - March 2021 (92 comments) WordStar: A Writer’s Word Processor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20898950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20898950 - Sept 2019 (1 comment) WordTsar – A Wordstar clone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189 - July 2018 (85 comments, including "My dad, Seymour Rubinstein, created WordStar." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17557412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17557412) WordStar: A writer’s word processor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899238 - March 2017 (1 comment) WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13850693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13850693 - March 2017 (106 comments) What ever happened to Wordstar? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12114185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12114185 - July 2016 (169 comments) WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8272952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8272952 - Sept 2014 (5 comments) George R.R. Martin Writes Everything In WordStar 4.0 On A DOS Machine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744952 - May 2014 (33 comments) A Song of DOS and WordStar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732320 - May 2014 (13 comments)
- app4soft 5y ago
  WordStar Editor Family on TextEditors Wiki - https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WordStarFamily https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WordStarFamily P.S. Few converters written in Python may be useful for those who has *.ws files: WordStar2Markdown: https://github.com/kbarni/wsconvert https://github.com/kbarni/wsconvert WordStar2txt: https://github.com/pstankiewicz/wordstar2txt https://github.com/pstankiewicz/wordstar2txt
DrTung 5y ago
Long live WordStar and it's many brethren! I got addicted to it when coding Z80 assembler on CP/M in the late 70's and my life since then has been on a constant lookout for an equally good program in other OS's. In Linux and MacOS terminals there's Joe, a godsend. But since I use Qt a lot, of course the first thing I wrote was a Wordstar clone plugin for Qt Creator. Not possible to survive otherwise :-)
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  Where can I get that plugin?
  - DrTung 5y ago
    https://gitlab.com/tungware/geezeredit https://gitlab.com/tungware/geezeredit
    - app4soft 5y ago
      JFTR, few hours ago I googled "Qt+WordStar plugin" and found only two mentions of it (both seems like from you) - its curious that Google not show your GitLab repo is search results.[0,1] > I need to build it, so I can compile my Wordstar-flavored editor plugin for QtCreator (maybe I'm giving away my age here).[0] :) [0] https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/qt-creator/2014-May/003600.html https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/qt-creator/2014-May/0... [1] https://forum.qt.io/post/370764 https://forum.qt.io/post/370764
      - DrTung 5y ago
        Hmmm one reason for Google stumbling re. GitLab might be: I was on GitHub for over 10 years (and GeezerEdit was there too) but when Microsoft bought it I fled to GitLab.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
optimalsolver 5y ago
G.R.R. Martin uses Wordstar on a DOS machine: https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin-uses-dos-wordstar-to-write https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin...
- simondotau 5y ago
  If it’s a DOS VM running on vaguely modern hardware and it has a script to encrypt and back up the VM image periodically, then that’s fine. If he’s using antique hardware, then he’s being silly. That’s like racing a 1960s-era car: It’s fun and nostalgic as long as nothing goes wrong and you never have a crash.
  - AndresNavarro 5y ago
    Sometimes people make simple things very complex. As long as he regularly backup his work he could be using an old machine with no issues. Why does he need to backup a vm image, why encrypt it? I imagine you think he should be uploading the encrypted vm image to the cloud... Writers been doing without for centuries. But then again, what do I know... I drive a car made in 1980, a motorcycle from 1962 and use a terminal (vt52 compatible) I made out of an MDA monitor and AT keyboard...
    - simondotau 5y ago
      Houses sometimes burn down. Occasionally, physical storage media catastrophically fails. When these things happen, you'd better hope that your backup process (a) worked, (b) was complete and (c) didn't suffer the same fate as the primary hardware. Hopefully the author is diligent and has backed up everything with sufficient frequency and with sufficient physical separation. Whereas a VM backup means you can rehabilitate a functioning computer for the author with all of their data and __all__ of their esoteric configuration nuances in a matter of minutes. They can effectively have their computer reappear in front of them using any commodity hardware available off-the-shelf from any large town in Western civilisation—no need to rummage around your local community to track down esoteric, period-correct hardware components. I don't think cloud backups are strictly necessary but given the size of a DOS virtual machine in its entirty, why the hell not? What are we talking about here, one or two megabytes after compression? That's less than one JPEG from a smartphone. > I drive a car made in 1980 Don't crash.
yc-kraln 5y ago
I came into this thread having misread the title as being a "Worldstar" clone--imagine my surprise at it being a text editor from the 70s!
filmgirlcw 5y ago
Text editors (whether it is for prose or code or math or whatever) are such a personal thing that it is always interesting to read about how and why people use certain tools. WordStar had already been supplanted by WordPerfect (and to a lesser-extent, Microsoft Word), before I was even born, so I can’t even pretend to romanticize WordStar and its UX (which would drive me crazy, the same way Emacs drives me crazy), but it’s neat or read about how other people use their tools and why they love what they love. What I’ve found over the years is that people become very particular about their tools and their setups but that my exact preference is not going to match that of someone else, which is part of what make the endless text editor debates so fun/enduring. The only thing I take some issue with (and this essay is from 1990, so it gets a complete pass from me, but I mean this about most of the essays of this type), is that in order to advocate for why a person prefers a specific setup, people have a tendency to denigrate other tools. “Real writers use WordStar.” “Real lawyers use WordPerfect.” “Real hackers use [vi, emacs, IDE or text editor du jour here].” “Real screenwriters use Final Draft.” (The last one is slightly outdated and is probably “real Screenwriters use Fountain.”) Ans that just contributes to the gatekeeping/in-group dynamics that can make joining some of these established niche communities difficult/toxic. I get the impulse; I’ve certainly been guilty of those statements in the past myself (“real writers use Markdown”), but the older I get (or maybe just the more people I’m exposed to), the more I realize is that tools are personal and that my preferred paradigm might align with some others, but there is no one true way. That doesn’t mean I don’t still cringe when people I know and love use Google Docs for everything, but I’ve at least resisted the urge to enumerate all the reasons Google Docs is so inferior for me/my needs.
- simonblack 5y ago
  Text editors ... are such a personal thing Sooner or later, you get imprinted with one. It may not be the first one you use, or maybe not the last one you tried. I got imprinted with WordStar in the mid 1980s. I still use WordStar itself when I program in CP/M. And I use jstar (one of the 'joe' alter egos that pretends it's WordStar) when I program in C on Linux.
- fouc 5y ago
  What essay are you referring to? (Since the parent link is to a site rather than a specific essay).. I'm guessing it's this one? https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
GartzenDeHaes 5y ago
Since it's WordStar day, I use joe a fair amount. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe%27s_Own_Editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe%27s_Own_Editor
GekkePrutser 5y ago
I wish there was a console version of this. Linux really lacks a good writing app for console. All the text editors don't do on-the-fly word-wrapping (while not inserting a real line ending). Makes sense for a text editor that's normally used for config files and programming, but I would really want something more like a word processor. There's wordgrinder but it's not great for this, it has a proprietary format so I have to export to .txt every time. Something like wordstar that would just save in text format woudl be amazing. It's just very strange that something that is 100% natural on the web (text word-wrapping works perfectly in every textbox on the web!!) is so difficult to achieve on the console. I heard maybe vim or emacs can do it but I'm not a fan of those tbh. I'd love something like nano...
- gooseyard 5y ago
  The venerable joe editor (https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io) is apparently very comfortable for Wordstar users. I used it for a few years in college before I could afford enough RAM to run emacs and although I never actually used Wordstar myself and cant compare it that way, I really liked using joe and can still remember a lot of the keybindings 20+ years later.
  - tangus 5y ago
    It lacks word wrapping tho.
    - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
      ^TW .. By default it word wraps files, so editing source files with long lines gets a bit annoying, I know one can save the default options, but I've used this shortcut a lot of times that I know it by heart.
      - GekkePrutser 5y ago
        True but as far as I remember it inserts a 'hard' line ending every time it wraps. Meaning you have to go back in and clean up all those line endings if you want to go back and edit a paragraph, otherwise everything ends up out of whack. What I'd prefer is an editor that wraps visually but only inserts line endings at the end of a paragraph (when enter is actually pressed).
kazinator 5y ago
I used WordStar on CP/M for a good many homework assignments in elementary and high school. JOE (Joe's Own Editor) has WordStar-inspired key bindings. I used that just a very little bit thirty years ago.
drusepth 5y ago
It's really interesting to compare the niche word processors of the 90s to those today, especially those targeted specifically for writers [1]. The former are all wildly different each other and from the latter, which are basically all "Microsoft Word but with chapters/folders" now -- with a few extra features tacked onto the good ones. I'd love to see some word processors pop up that are fundamentally different again. [1] https://www.fiction.tools/#writing-word-processors https://www.fiction.tools/#writing-word-processors
bonestamp2 5y ago
I can appreciate this. I've written thousands of articles in Sublime Text. Sublime is not my favorite editor for coding, I prefer IntelliJ there, but sublime is beautifully simple for writing and basic editing. Being able to refactor the story, by moving sentences and paragraphs the way we refactor code, is wonderful. After I'm happy with the first draft, I'll drop the text into google docs for a second set of eyes on spelling and grammar (I find the google docs grammar check superior to any other word processor).
newdude116 5y ago
Interesting. I use commercial softmaker on Linux. They offer a scaled down free version: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ If you look for an odd program try this: https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ Made for professional writes. Last time I tried it, I must say, it was fast as f.. (Installed with WIne under Linux)
spodek 5y ago
For documents longer than a page or two, I start with a mindmap. I used to start with an outline, but once I got the hang of mindmaps, I consider them essential software. Amassing and organizing ideas is different than writing and benefits from a different tool. I find mindmapping fun. I use freeplane https://www.freeplane.org https://www.freeplane.org.
cable2600 5y ago
If you got eMacs it can be made to use WordStar commands: http://web.mit.edu/Emacs/source/emacs/lisp/emulation/ws-mode.el http://web.mit.edu/Emacs/source/emacs/lisp/emulation/ws-mode...
sgtnoodle 5y ago
Every five seconds, this web site subtly vibrates up and down. Is it just on my phone?
- FounderBurr 5y ago
  No it has cancer.
- tangus 5y ago
  It's because there is a slideshow with images of uneven height at the top of the page.
sizzle 5y ago
Who else thought it said Worldstar on first glance and thought it was an open platform clone of the video platform?

203 points by rhabarba 5y ago

vagrantJin 5y ago

Silly me. I read that as Worldstar

geraldbrandt 5y ago
Sadly, that comes up in any search for Wordstar or WordTsar.
- oogetyboogety 5y ago
  I thought it was a new worldstarhiphop star destined to take over the game
keiferski 5y ago
Same here. Then I started thinking, what does a WorldStar alternative look like?
eutropia 5y ago
I thought this was going to be a dashcams only version of WorldStar.
GekkePrutser 5y ago
Lol I never even heard of worldstar XD

neom 5y ago

"WordStar is a word processor application for microcomputers. It dominated the market in the early and mid-1980s, succeeding the market leader Electric Pencil. It was published by MicroPro International, originally written for the CP/M-80 operating system, and later written also for MS-DOS and other 16-bit PC OSes. Seymour I. Rubinstein was the principal owner of the company, and Rob Barnaby was the sole author of the early versions of the program. Starting with WordStar 4.0, the program was built on new code written principally by Peter Mierau." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar

rhabarba 5y ago
Yes. And it still is less annoying to use than some of its successors. (Your mileage is intended to vary.)
- GekkePrutser 5y ago
  Yeah like WordPerfect. I remember all those strips people used to stick on their keyboards to remember all the weird function key combinations :) Though the "submerged" screen (where you could see all the markup control codes, not sure what it was called in the English feature) was a handy feature I kinda miss in modern word processors.
  - lproven 5y ago
    It was called "reveal codes". http://wordperfect.helpmax.net/en/creating-and-managing-documents/viewing-and-navigating-documents/using-reveal-codes/ http://wordperfect.helpmax.net/en/creating-and-managing-docu...
    - rhabarba 5y ago
      To be precise, it still is and Corel actively advertises it.
sswaner 5y ago
The "boring" computer my parents bought in the 80's was a KayPro II with three programs - WordStar, CalcStar, and DataStar. It was great for me to learn those programs. The structure of text formatting in WordStar made HTML really easy to learn a decade later. I am excited to see if the WordStar keyboard commands come back easily to me after 35 years.

thomasfl 5y ago

+1 for the funny, glorious and mighty name.

geraldbrandt 5y ago
LOL. Thanks.

xgulfie 5y ago

Someone tell George RR Martin

7thaccount 5y ago
My thoughts exactly.
rhabarba 5y ago
WordTsar won’t run on DOS!
- eddieh 5y ago
  That's a shame. Many of the WordStar holdouts actually like their writing machine to be some old reliable computer without modern distractions. It isn't just the software, it is the whole experience. It runs one program at a time, no internet, now notifications, just reliable typing on what's probably a mechanical keyboard that has exactly the right feel.
  - technofiend 5y ago
    Unicomp makes leaf spring switch keyboards that are the modern day equivalent of IBM's beloved PC keyboards. They are too loud for a shared work environment but perfect for home use, assuming you don't multitask during a meeting with your mic on, anyway.
    - rhabarba 5y ago
      Leaf springs are different switches. Unicomp makes buckling spring keyboards - which are not "the equivalent" of IBM's Model M keyboards, but they actually are the current brand which makes the original Model M keyboards. (They were branded "Lexmark" earlier - after IBM had founded a spin-off company for them.) They have become less sturdy over the years though.
      - technofiend 5y ago

loloquwowndueo 5y ago

Robert j. Sawyer is also a prominent wordstar diehard who ought to be interested in this project :) he wrote an interesting rationale for his use of wordstar. https://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm https://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm I wonder if learning proper use of vim motions would cover most of these use cases today :)

eddieh 5y ago
Many authors use WordStar. Here is George R. R. Martin taking about WordStar https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X5REM-3nWHg I think, and I believe it has been suggested to Robert J. Sawyer, that Emacs keys are very similar to WordStar in the use of cords (or prefixed keystrokes). WordStar has ^Q as a prefix whereas Emacs has ^x, ^c, and ^h, etc. [edit] Add bit about Emacs
- alpaca128 5y ago
  Both Vim and Emacs can bind almost any(1) kind of input with the right configuration. Emacs has a lot of them in the default configuration, Vim just a bit using e.g. the leader key and Ctrl-W for window/split navigation. But in the end it's about efficient keyboard-focused controls and it seems for many WordStar was the first one that fit the bill. (1) except inputs consisting of multiple keys at once; terminals don't detect keyup/keydown events. Maybe Emacs can do it, I'm not familiar enough to know.
  - rhabarba 5y ago
    Emacs mostly uses key chords, not unlike WordStar, but its document setting capabilities are limited out of the box.
  - ngcc_hk 5y ago
    Can vim do document and book oriented content like paragraph flow etc ?
Andrew_nenakhov 5y ago
This rationale has completely convinced me that we will never see any new ASOIAF books from George Martin: even this very productive tool didn't help him finish new book in over a decade.

wila 5y ago

Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189

rhabarba 5y ago
Missed that! Sorry.
- detaro 5y ago
  Older than a year, so not a problem
- wila 5y ago
  No problem at all. The only reason I mentioned the earlier discussion is because I thought it had some interesting comments.

gaius_baltar 5y ago

Seems nice and I will give it a try! Now a question: there is some obvious reason for using AGPL for a desktop GUI application (not a web app, a server, etc.)? AGPL would be my license to go in the later cases, so it would protect the project from being SaaSSed, but I could not find an advantage for graphical desktop apps yet.

rhabarba 5y ago
I would guess that it’s because of the Qt libraries, but this is just an assumption.
- detaro 5y ago
  Using Qt does not require you to use (A)GPL, and it had that license before it used Qt.
dragonwriter 5y ago
Desktop GUI apps can be SaaSed by tying them to a virtual desktop. Or it could be using AGPL components.
geraldbrandt 5y ago
I honestly can't remember why I chose the AGPL.
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  Lots of desktop programs are being turned into “VNC in your browser”-type things. Maybe that was it?

adamw2k 5y ago

Brings me back to the days of using Word Perfect with a keyboard overlay...

mongol 5y ago

Are WordStar keyboard shortcuts resembling those commonly used today? Or are they their own heritage?

rhabarba 5y ago
They predate those commonly used today.
geraldbrandt 5y ago
http://wordstar.org/index.php/wsemu-documentation/wsemu-commands-and-menus/1-wordstar-emulator-full-version-command-list#:~:text=Command%20List%20%28Full%20Version%29%20%20%20Keystroke%20,%20Character%20Right%20%2063%20more%20rows%20 http://wordstar.org/index.php/wsemu-documentation/wsemu-comm...

zabzonk 5y ago

WordStar was a really good programming editor, if you put into text mode. I wrote a lot of C and assembler code using it back in the 1980s. And it was a good word processor - much easier to get to grips with than WordPerfect, IMHO.

toast0 5y ago
I use JOE as my programming (and general purpose) editor, which is modeled after WordStar in a lot of ways. Once, I happened upon a WordStar installation and was able to use it just fine, because I already knew the concepts (I think the command prefix isn't ^K though, so it felt a bit off?)
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  Joe (or jstar) is my go to console editor.
  - GekkePrutser 5y ago
    Does it still save bak files everywhere though? I used it for a while and it littered folders everywhere with them as it doesn't clean them up. I tried turning it off but an update came through that changed something and turned it back on, and then I came across nano which felt nicer :)
    - toast0 5y ago
      I actually like those ~ files everywhere, because it makes for an easy and (almost) universal undo. But it does make a mess, and I understand why you might not want them. I would be surprised if you can't turn them off, though... and I'm even more surprised they came back after an update, I wonder if you set it in the system config and not a personal config, so it got overwritten when you updated; but possibly the config value changed names too. :( That's very frustrating, and I hope nano treats you well.
geraldbrandt 5y ago
WordTsar doesn't do non-document mode... though I'm thinking about it.

dotancohen 5y ago

The site mentions UTF-8 support. Can anyone take a screenshot of this so I could see if it's worth compiling: שלום, עולם! I'd be interested in ODT support as well, but there seems to be no mention on the site so I'm assuming that LibreOffice compatibility is right out.

geraldbrandt 5y ago
It's still in Alpha and coded by one guy (me). Give it time...
- dotancohen 5y ago
  Then I'll just take the opportunity to say thank you. I'm personally very happy with VIM and Markdown, but I know a lot of people loved Wordstar and I fear for the day when VIM will be where Wordstar is now.
  - MonkeyClub 5y ago
    Don't say such things without a trigger warning first :) Though vi has a good track record, and hopefully will be with is for a long time still.
geraldbrandt 5y ago
If you're on twitter, search for the tag #wordtsar. There's some screen shots there.
- rhabarba 5y ago
  My timeline does not have any WordTsar users yet. Time to change that!

skyfaller 5y ago

Why host the project on SourceForge? Just force of habit? Other code forges don't look better enough to justify the effort of moving? Or are there actively good things about SourceForge these days?

rob74 5y ago
Are you asking the author(s) of a project that emulates a decades-old word processor so that people don't have to learn to use a newer word processor to learn to use a newer code hosting platform? I guess this project is the very embodiment of "force of habit"...
- bdcravens 5y ago
  MS-DOS 1.25 (1983) is on Github https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS https://github.com/microsoft/MS-DOS
  - schaefer 5y ago
    Ah, but is git on dos 1.25? Asking for a friend.
IshKebab 5y ago
There are a fair number of projects from the old days that just never bothered to move. I don't think anyone chooses to host new projects there
29athrowaway 5y ago
Was not SourceForge bundling malware with open source project releases? That was the moment when I decided to drop SourceForge forever.
- geraldbrandt 5y ago
  That changed long ago.
- tssva 5y ago

protomyth 5y ago

Its funny, but I bet more people had the Wordstar keyboard shortcuts in muscle memory than actually used Wordstar.

bombcar 5y ago
I knew a few people who used Lotus 1-2-3 shortcuts for excel even though they had never used 1-2-3.
kcartlidge 5y ago
I'm one of them. Despite being a big fan of WordPerfect, I still have WordStar muscle memory from the days of Borland IDEs (starting with Turbo Pascal 3).

29athrowaway 5y ago

On WordPerfect 6.2 you could switch between text mode UI, a DOS GUI and a Windows GUI.

dang 5y ago

As wila pointed out already, there was a previous thread about this project. (Reposts are fine on HN after a year, so this is not a problem - see the FAQ.) Maybe worth hauling out the comprehensive WordStar list though: WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26370252 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26370252 - March 2021 (92 comments) WordStar: A Writer’s Word Processor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20898950 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20898950 - Sept 2019 (1 comment) WordTsar – A Wordstar clone - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17549189 - July 2018 (85 comments, including "My dad, Seymour Rubinstein, created WordStar." https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17557412 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17557412) WordStar: A writer’s word processor - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899238 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13899238 - March 2017 (1 comment) WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13850693 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13850693 - March 2017 (106 comments) What ever happened to Wordstar? - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12114185 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12114185 - July 2016 (169 comments) WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8272952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8272952 - Sept 2014 (5 comments) George R.R. Martin Writes Everything In WordStar 4.0 On A DOS Machine - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744952 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7744952 - May 2014 (33 comments) A Song of DOS and WordStar - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732320 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7732320 - May 2014 (13 comments)

app4soft 5y ago
WordStar Editor Family on TextEditors Wiki - https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WordStarFamily https://texteditors.org/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?WordStarFamily P.S. Few converters written in Python may be useful for those who has *.ws files: WordStar2Markdown: https://github.com/kbarni/wsconvert https://github.com/kbarni/wsconvert WordStar2txt: https://github.com/pstankiewicz/wordstar2txt https://github.com/pstankiewicz/wordstar2txt

DrTung 5y ago

Long live WordStar and it's many brethren! I got addicted to it when coding Z80 assembler on CP/M in the late 70's and my life since then has been on a constant lookout for an equally good program in other OS's. In Linux and MacOS terminals there's Joe, a godsend. But since I use Qt a lot, of course the first thing I wrote was a Wordstar clone plugin for Qt Creator. Not possible to survive otherwise :-)

geraldbrandt 5y ago
Where can I get that plugin?
- DrTung 5y ago
  https://gitlab.com/tungware/geezeredit https://gitlab.com/tungware/geezeredit
  - app4soft 5y ago
    JFTR, few hours ago I googled "Qt+WordStar plugin" and found only two mentions of it (both seems like from you) - its curious that Google not show your GitLab repo is search results.[0,1] > I need to build it, so I can compile my Wordstar-flavored editor plugin for QtCreator (maybe I'm giving away my age here).[0] :) [0] https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/qt-creator/2014-May/003600.html https://lists.qt-project.org/pipermail/qt-creator/2014-May/0... [1] https://forum.qt.io/post/370764 https://forum.qt.io/post/370764
    - DrTung 5y ago
      Hmmm one reason for Google stumbling re. GitLab might be: I was on GitHub for over 10 years (and GeezerEdit was there too) but when Microsoft bought it I fled to GitLab.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

optimalsolver 5y ago

G.R.R. Martin uses Wordstar on a DOS machine: https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin-uses-dos-wordstar-to-write https://www.theverge.com/2014/5/14/5716232/george-r-r-martin...

simondotau 5y ago
If it’s a DOS VM running on vaguely modern hardware and it has a script to encrypt and back up the VM image periodically, then that’s fine. If he’s using antique hardware, then he’s being silly. That’s like racing a 1960s-era car: It’s fun and nostalgic as long as nothing goes wrong and you never have a crash.
- AndresNavarro 5y ago
  Sometimes people make simple things very complex. As long as he regularly backup his work he could be using an old machine with no issues. Why does he need to backup a vm image, why encrypt it? I imagine you think he should be uploading the encrypted vm image to the cloud... Writers been doing without for centuries. But then again, what do I know... I drive a car made in 1980, a motorcycle from 1962 and use a terminal (vt52 compatible) I made out of an MDA monitor and AT keyboard...
  - simondotau 5y ago
    Houses sometimes burn down. Occasionally, physical storage media catastrophically fails. When these things happen, you'd better hope that your backup process (a) worked, (b) was complete and (c) didn't suffer the same fate as the primary hardware. Hopefully the author is diligent and has backed up everything with sufficient frequency and with sufficient physical separation. Whereas a VM backup means you can rehabilitate a functioning computer for the author with all of their data and __all__ of their esoteric configuration nuances in a matter of minutes. They can effectively have their computer reappear in front of them using any commodity hardware available off-the-shelf from any large town in Western civilisation—no need to rummage around your local community to track down esoteric, period-correct hardware components. I don't think cloud backups are strictly necessary but given the size of a DOS virtual machine in its entirty, why the hell not? What are we talking about here, one or two megabytes after compression? That's less than one JPEG from a smartphone. > I drive a car made in 1980 Don't crash.

yc-kraln 5y ago

I came into this thread having misread the title as being a "Worldstar" clone--imagine my surprise at it being a text editor from the 70s!

filmgirlcw 5y ago

Text editors (whether it is for prose or code or math or whatever) are such a personal thing that it is always interesting to read about how and why people use certain tools. WordStar had already been supplanted by WordPerfect (and to a lesser-extent, Microsoft Word), before I was even born, so I can’t even pretend to romanticize WordStar and its UX (which would drive me crazy, the same way Emacs drives me crazy), but it’s neat or read about how other people use their tools and why they love what they love. What I’ve found over the years is that people become very particular about their tools and their setups but that my exact preference is not going to match that of someone else, which is part of what make the endless text editor debates so fun/enduring. The only thing I take some issue with (and this essay is from 1990, so it gets a complete pass from me, but I mean this about most of the essays of this type), is that in order to advocate for why a person prefers a specific setup, people have a tendency to denigrate other tools. “Real writers use WordStar.” “Real lawyers use WordPerfect.” “Real hackers use [vi, emacs, IDE or text editor du jour here].” “Real screenwriters use Final Draft.” (The last one is slightly outdated and is probably “real Screenwriters use Fountain.”) Ans that just contributes to the gatekeeping/in-group dynamics that can make joining some of these established niche communities difficult/toxic. I get the impulse; I’ve certainly been guilty of those statements in the past myself (“real writers use Markdown”), but the older I get (or maybe just the more people I’m exposed to), the more I realize is that tools are personal and that my preferred paradigm might align with some others, but there is no one true way. That doesn’t mean I don’t still cringe when people I know and love use Google Docs for everything, but I’ve at least resisted the urge to enumerate all the reasons Google Docs is so inferior for me/my needs.

simonblack 5y ago
Text editors ... are such a personal thing Sooner or later, you get imprinted with one. It may not be the first one you use, or maybe not the last one you tried. I got imprinted with WordStar in the mid 1980s. I still use WordStar itself when I program in CP/M. And I use jstar (one of the 'joe' alter egos that pretends it's WordStar) when I program in C on Linux.
fouc 5y ago
What essay are you referring to? (Since the parent link is to a site rather than a specific essay).. I'm guessing it's this one? https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm https://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

GartzenDeHaes 5y ago

Since it's WordStar day, I use joe a fair amount. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe%27s_Own_Editor https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe%27s_Own_Editor

GekkePrutser 5y ago

I wish there was a console version of this. Linux really lacks a good writing app for console. All the text editors don't do on-the-fly word-wrapping (while not inserting a real line ending). Makes sense for a text editor that's normally used for config files and programming, but I would really want something more like a word processor. There's wordgrinder but it's not great for this, it has a proprietary format so I have to export to .txt every time. Something like wordstar that would just save in text format woudl be amazing. It's just very strange that something that is 100% natural on the web (text word-wrapping works perfectly in every textbox on the web!!) is so difficult to achieve on the console. I heard maybe vim or emacs can do it but I'm not a fan of those tbh. I'd love something like nano...

gooseyard 5y ago
The venerable joe editor (https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io https://joe-editor.sourceforge.io) is apparently very comfortable for Wordstar users. I used it for a few years in college before I could afford enough RAM to run emacs and although I never actually used Wordstar myself and cant compare it that way, I really liked using joe and can still remember a lot of the keybindings 20+ years later.
- tangus 5y ago
  It lacks word wrapping tho.
  - bellyfullofbac 5y ago
    ^TW .. By default it word wraps files, so editing source files with long lines gets a bit annoying, I know one can save the default options, but I've used this shortcut a lot of times that I know it by heart.
    - GekkePrutser 5y ago
      True but as far as I remember it inserts a 'hard' line ending every time it wraps. Meaning you have to go back in and clean up all those line endings if you want to go back and edit a paragraph, otherwise everything ends up out of whack. What I'd prefer is an editor that wraps visually but only inserts line endings at the end of a paragraph (when enter is actually pressed).

kazinator 5y ago

I used WordStar on CP/M for a good many homework assignments in elementary and high school. JOE (Joe's Own Editor) has WordStar-inspired key bindings. I used that just a very little bit thirty years ago.

drusepth 5y ago

It's really interesting to compare the niche word processors of the 90s to those today, especially those targeted specifically for writers [1]. The former are all wildly different each other and from the latter, which are basically all "Microsoft Word but with chapters/folders" now -- with a few extra features tacked onto the good ones. I'd love to see some word processors pop up that are fundamentally different again. [1] https://www.fiction.tools/#writing-word-processors https://www.fiction.tools/#writing-word-processors

bonestamp2 5y ago

I can appreciate this. I've written thousands of articles in Sublime Text. Sublime is not my favorite editor for coding, I prefer IntelliJ there, but sublime is beautifully simple for writing and basic editing. Being able to refactor the story, by moving sentences and paragraphs the way we refactor code, is wonderful. After I'm happy with the first draft, I'll drop the text into google docs for a second set of eyes on spelling and grammar (I find the google docs grammar check superior to any other word processor).

newdude116 5y ago

Interesting. I use commercial softmaker on Linux. They offer a scaled down free version: https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ https://www.freeoffice.com/en/ If you look for an odd program try this: https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ https://www.papyrusauthor.com/ Made for professional writes. Last time I tried it, I must say, it was fast as f.. (Installed with WIne under Linux)

spodek 5y ago

For documents longer than a page or two, I start with a mindmap. I used to start with an outline, but once I got the hang of mindmaps, I consider them essential software. Amassing and organizing ideas is different than writing and benefits from a different tool. I find mindmapping fun. I use freeplane https://www.freeplane.org https://www.freeplane.org.

cable2600 5y ago

If you got eMacs it can be made to use WordStar commands: http://web.mit.edu/Emacs/source/emacs/lisp/emulation/ws-mode.el http://web.mit.edu/Emacs/source/emacs/lisp/emulation/ws-mode...

sgtnoodle 5y ago

Every five seconds, this web site subtly vibrates up and down. Is it just on my phone?

FounderBurr 5y ago
No it has cancer.
tangus 5y ago
It's because there is a slideshow with images of uneven height at the top of the page.

sizzle 5y ago

Who else thought it said Worldstar on first glance and thought it was an open platform clone of the video platform?