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WordPerfect was a great word processor at its prime, that is, in the ms-dos days in the 80s and early 90s. I’d love to be able to use the dos version, the artic
by loloquwowndueo 5y ago
WordPerfect was a great word processor at its prime, that is, in the ms-dos days in the 80s and early 90s. I’d love to be able to use the dos version, the article describes the Mac version which I never used so it doesn’t trigger the nostalgia and technical awe factors (“wow they did all this in assembly in a 4-MHz IBM PC while these days word or google docs bring a fast modern pc to its knees”).
If you’re into the whole retro nostalgia thing, “almost perfect” is a great read about the rise, success and fall of WordPerfect corporation. (http://www.wordplace.com/ap/ http://www.wordplace.com/ap/).
- Fwirt 5y agoFun story: My wife's grandfather was a salesman for WordPerfect back in the 1980s. He passed away roughly 15 years ago, but her grandmother still had a bunch of his stuff above her garage. When we were cleaning it out a couple years ago we found boxed/sealed sample copies of WordPerfect for every platform (Tandy/Apple II/DOS/etc.) all the way from the days when it was still published by SSI Software (version 1.x) up though 6.0 or so. There were also some dead-ended WordPerfect products (MathPerfect?), a bunch of branded WordPerfect conference swag (WordPerfect pocket calculators/mousepads/folios/etc.) and I think a couple quarterly sales reports and recruiting pamphlets. I tried to see if various computing museums wanted it, but nobody would take it. As far as I know it's still all sitting in a shed at my in-laws, can anybody think of something to do with it? It's ultimately destined for the dumpster, a younger me would have been appalled but at this point in my life I don't have the energy to worry about the detritus of a bygone corporation.
- tyingq 5y agoI would guess they would sell pretty fast on eBay, and likely to someone that would appreciate them.
- Fwirt 5y agoThe calculators sold pretty well, but the boxed software is pretty heavy and only appeals to a very specific audience. I think I found a few examples of auctions that ended without a single bid and figured it wasn't worth the trouble. I would be surprised if got many bids, but I guess I could give it a shot.
- wcarss 5y agoMaybe a lot of effort for little reward here, but you could always try contacting someone like LGR[1] and offer to send some for the purposes of making a video to show some of them off being unboxed and then used on their original hardware. In some senses, that might be about as good as sending it to a museum! 1 - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLx053rWZxCiYWsBETgdKrQ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLx053rWZxCiYWsBETgdKrQ
- ipaddr 5y agoI collect boxed software. I wasn't aware of your auction. In some ways auctions work against a product like this because this is an impulse buy now item. I would repost an auction now that hw is aware.
- SwimSwimHungry 5y agoI might be interested. Definitely consider posting some of this on eBay and I'd be happy to give it a look. :)
- easrng 5y agoAsk the Internet Archive if they want them.
- Firehawke 5y agoThis, contact Jason Scott (@Textfiles on Twitter, www.textfiles.com) and he'll probably hook you up with someone in a matter of 24 hours.
- dbt00 5y agoI'd hit up Jason Scott, textfiles.com or twitter.com/textfiles.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- ferdowsi 5y agoThis is a great story. There's little more painful than putting your life into building something and coming out feeling unappreciated.
- fishywang 5y agois this the word processor software that George RR Martin (and a few other authors) still uses on dos because modern alternative are all not good enough?
- loloquwowndueo 5y agoNo, that’d be wordstar.
- fishywang 5y agooh. thank you.
- lproven 5y agoHi. Article author here. Robert Sawyer and George Martin are fans of WordStar. I supported it in the 1980s. It is a very clunky, awkward program by modern standards; that is why WordPerfect completely supplanted it. It is not freeware. However, if you want to try it, there is a free clone: http://wordtsar.ca/ http://wordtsar.ca/
- cout 5y agoI remember having to learn WordStar keyboard shortcuts for some IDE I used to use. What a pain. Good riddance.
- lproven 5y agoIt was a very common UI once -- now the Joe editor offers it, but I think the CP/M version of Borland Turbo Pascal had the same. I tend to agree with you. WordStar came before WYSIWYG or proportional-font printing, and it never really adapted to those things. By comparison, WordPerfect was a master of getting the absolute best out of any printer you might have -- its printer support was legendarily good.
- predakanga 5y agoYou might still be able to - check out "WordPerfect for DOS updated": http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/ http://www.columbia.edu/~em36/wpdos/. If you want spreadsheets as well, Corel 1-2-3 works under dosemu at least (see https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/lotus123.html https://lock.cmpxchg8b.com/lotus123.html).
- lproven 5y agoHi. Article author here. I link to that site several times in the blog post – but I also explicitly point out that the DOS version is _not_ freeware. There is no such thing as Corel 1-2-3 and never was. IBM owns Lotus 1-2-3. It too is not free and never was, but you can run AsEasyAs for nothing. http://www.triusinc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10 http://www.triusinc.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=10
- cout 5y agoCorel did sell a clone of 1-2-3 (Quattro Pro) as part of their suite. In my opinion it was far superior, at least for how I used it in middle school, though I'm sure some diehard 1-2-3 users would disagree.
- lproven 5y agoIt's a bit harsh to Quattro Pro to call it a 1-2-3 clone! 8-) It's a complete DOS spreadsheet in its own right, and a very good one at that. Quattro is the spreadsheet that introduced the feature of highlighting a range, then dragging the corner of the range and the program extrapolates the data and fills in the extra cells -- a very handy function indeed IMHO. There were a bunch of DOS spreadsheets -- Lotus 1-2-3 was _the_ killer app that led the IBM PC to greatness and created the modern computer industry. VisiCalc for the Apple ][ created spreadsheets and improved the lives of tens of thousands of accountants and executives, but 1-2-3 took that concept and made it far more powerful. The name denotes that it integrates the three key functions of [1] spreadsheeting, [2] generating charts, and [3] building and querying simple databases. IMHO probably the best value commercial spreadsheet for DOS was Computer Associates' Supercalc 5, which was $49 at the end of its life and a very capable, fully-3D program. And of course there was Microsoft Multiplan, later combined with Microsoft Chart and wrapped in a GUI to create Microsoft's pioneering first Mac app, called Excel. But if you knew 1-2-3, then AsEasyAs was a direct copy and the subject of a copy-and-feel lawsuit at the time. It's officially discontinued but as it was shareware it was always free to download and use, and it still is today.
- lproven 5y agoHi. Article author here. It does not describe the MacOS version. Its primary focus is the native Linux version. Did you stop reading after a couple of paragraphs, but still comment? You make me wonder if I should have structured it differently. :-(
- protomyth 5y agoWordPerfect 3.5 for the Mac was an awesome pre-OS X word processor. It was fast and never felt bloated or out of place.