I’m a Fedora Linux user, a very happy one at that, and there’s no shortage of decent text editors for Fedora; yet, I have to say that for the past few months I’ve been happily writing my text on the most awkward and backward editor you could think of… and it turned out to be one of the most pleasant writing experiences I’ve had in the past few years.
After reading on The Register that Canadian science-fiction writer Robert J. Sawyer “released” (in a somewhat irregular way from a legal point of view, one has to admit) the binaries of WordStar 7 for DOS online, I proceeded to install it in my DOSBox Staging installation on my main computer, and to start learning as much as I could about it.
And the truth is that it’s a lovely editor. It’s minimalistic yet filled with a handful of useful features, and the keyboard shortcuts are surprisingly easy to remember.
The distribution (if we can call it that) that Mr. Sawyer made available online includes a file conversion utility that can be used to generate RTF files from those WordStar creations. Because, let us be very honest: no modern text editor (that I know of) is capable of reading (let alone writing) WordStar files, so that’s a bummer. But just launch the conversion utility, transform those files to the much more widespread RTF format, and boom, you can move your content into the 21st century without any issues.
(Oh, and did I mention that this distribution also includes a large selection of WordStar 5 and 7 manuals in PDF format? All together, ready to use.)
Writing in a distraction-free environment like WordStar is a blessing, almost a privilege. The application starts almost instantly, loads and saves files as fast, and does not include any stupid feature that slows down the UI.
Yes, I know; I could be using the JOE editor with the same keyboard shortcuts, and I wouldn’t need to use a file converter or even DOSBox. But I like the isolation. In a sense, it feels like writing in a hut somewhere in Saskatchewan; wild, limited, minimalistic, simple.
I somehow need those adjectives around me more than ever. In an age where every single piece of software fails at the worst possible moment, in an age where there are so many notifications that it’s impossible to get shit done, using 30-year-old software package that just works is a breath of fresh air. Coupled with the trusty keyboard of my ThinkPad Carbon X1, I feel my fingers can fly, unencumbered, and without limitations.
And there’s another thing: you can save a customized, literal copy of WS.EXE
(the name of the WordStar executable), taylored to your preferences, with any name you want; to illustrate this, the distribution includes a SAWYER.EXE
, of course created by Mr. Sawyer, and you can generate any other as well. In my case, needless to say, I’ve created an AKOSMA.EXE
that has all of my preferred settings. Simple!
I can understand why people enjoyed using this software so much back in the day. (And if you’re a WordStar fan, you should probably try WordTsar, too. Yes, it’s a thing.)
Thanks, Mr. Sawyer. You’ve provided me with a fantastic tool to get more text online.