

WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996) - Tomte
http://sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm

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lobster_johnson
The WordStar keyboard shortcuts influenced other programs. Turbo Pascal and
other Borland apps used the WordStar layout, for example. The joe [1] editor
still uses it, and that's probably why it's my go-to text editor when I'm in
the shell.

In particular, Borland's IDEs supported both a clipboard and the WordStar
"block" commands, which gave you selection superpowers. A block was a
selection that persisted even if you moved the cursor around, and even if you
copied or pasted stuff in/out of the clipboard. So you could copy something to
clipboard (ctrl+ins), move/copy a block around (^KB to begin block, ^KK to end
it, ^KC to copy current block to cursor, ^KV to move it), and then paste from
the clipboard (shift+ins). It was very much like having two clipboards. I had
colleagues watching over my shoulder trying to decipher how I was able to edit
code the way I did.

[1] [http://joe-editor.sourceforge.net](http://joe-editor.sourceforge.net)

~~~
cbd1984
There's a more modern version with some interesting features:
[https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm](https://www.mirbsd.org/jupp.htm)

~~~
DrTung
Thanks for the link, I'm trying jupp now, and indeed it feels a bit newer. One
thing that causes screen refresh problems for me with joe/jstar, is editing
files with long lines, say 160 characters or more. I'll see if jupp fares
better.

------
DrTung
Not just for a writer, for programmers too. Without my WordStar plugins for
Xcode and QtCreator I work much slower.

