
WordTsar – A Wordstar clone - valeg
http://wordtsar.ca/
======
hyloguy
My dad, Seymour Rubinstein, created WordStar. It’s amazing to witness this
homage to its enduring legacy.

~~~
warrenmca
Wow, amazing - I worked for Micropro back in the early 80s - ask him about the
Barnaby monitor throwing incident sometime...

~~~
creeble
In Sausalito? I worked at Autodesk down the street.

I don't remember when Micropro moved to Sausalito, but recall it was near the
end of Wordstar's reign.

We had a phrase that described the value of the piracy of Wordstar. The
"Wordstar Effect" held that the primacy of a file format was a huge boost to
revenue even if you only captured 5% of paying customers.

~~~
warrenmca
Fourth St. San Rafael, also Northgate Mall

------
projectramo
Like other HN users, I like to do things myself.

So when G RR Martin was taking so long to write Winds of Winter, I thought I
would just hack a copy myself. And by "hack", I mean I would write it.

I had a good sense of the characters, and I knew what I wanted to happen so I
started writing.

It came out utter rubbish.

Wondering why, I realizes I was using Google Docs whereas George Martin used
Wordstar.

This is all coming together.

------
Communitivity
My dad was a professional writer for decades. He started using a computer to
write when the Osborne computer first came out, using Wordstar, and swore by
it until he died a few years ago. I too am constantly amazed by how WordStar
had many advanced features on a system with no HDD and only two 5.25 floppy
disks. It is a nice homage to recreate it, good job. I hope you continue to
polish it, and provide a license

------
throwawayqdhd
This is just a ploy to ensure that George RR Martin doesn't stop writing once
the original WordStar stops working!

------
andrewl
WordStar was the first word processor I used. I've lived in Vim for years now,
but I still have WordStar manuals in the software museum section at the back
of my bookcase. I haven't gotten them out in approximately forever:

[https://i.imgur.com/hFaFdgK.jpg](https://i.imgur.com/hFaFdgK.jpg)

------
pasbesoin
I need to hook up my old Okidata so I can use control-character-triggered
physical backspacing to put double-quote "unlauts" on top of my vowels.

And "B" plus "p" makes a passable ß (well, in a different font).

Fun times.

By the way, with regard to other comments here about diehard users, I never
had more than a passing relationship with WordPerfect 5.1, but I've heard of
people who stayed with it for years and years (and years). For them, it was
and remained the perfect writing tool.

~~~
JdeBP
You'll find that this system is still in use even today. GNU roff, for
example, in non-UTF-8 locales with a terminal as the output device renders the
bullets in bulleted lists as a "+" overstruck by an "o" to give a crossed
circle.

And the manual systems on the BSDs and on Linux operating systems still use
TeleType Model 37 overstriking semantics for boldface and underlining, even
though (for starters) GNU grotty has been capable of the more modern (from
1976!) system of specifying character attributes on terminals for decades.

* [https://sources.debian.org/src/groff/1.22.3-10/tmac/tty.tmac...](https://sources.debian.org/src/groff/1.22.3-10/tmac/tty.tmac/#L22)

* [http://jdebp.info./Proposals/ul-manual-page.html](http://jdebp.info./Proposals/ul-manual-page.html)

* [http://jdebp.info./Softwares/nosh/italics-in-manuals.html](http://jdebp.info./Softwares/nosh/italics-in-manuals.html)

------
ggm
I recall two things about it: firstly, it did a good job of showing the
control-format chars inline, for markup you knew had formatting.

Secondly, it consumed an outrageous amount of the screen to show the list of
available commands, which was a design 'thing' at the time: p-code UCSD OS did
this too, and if you had enough brain cells left from the life of beer at
university it felt like this was tractable screen space being eaten in ways
you'd rather have back.

So as an EMACS/Vi person, it didn't make sense: watching other people be
phenomenally productive in it, was a bit of an "oh, ok.. that makes total
sense now" moment.

The CP/M DOS crossover years, when this predominated were quite interesting.
It was also a time of variable speed floppy drives, so they "sang" at you as
they chuntered around the disk surface (constant linear velocity sectors ==
variable radial speed)

~~~
rpiguy
You could reduce the screen theft of the menus. It defaulted to a large menu
for new users, as you became more proficient you could adjust the "help level"
and reclaim the screen.

~~~
ggm
Yes, like spreadsheets, if you came from classic CompSci you could choose to
not invest enough time in this stuff to become the expert, and take false-
evidence reasoning (like me) to say "toy". I did this, with word* and with the
first spreadsheets (my god, just use a pen and paper, or expr or BC) and other
solecisms.

Maybe others were smarter. I think I excelled at being super-dumb about what I
was seeing.

The shrunk-header bar, was fine. Actually, a pane of 'what can I do' is now a
"thing" Google does, in its web apps. It reminds me of what wartstar was
doing!

------
mhd
There's also WormStar[1], an expanded wordstar-mode for Emacs. Commit to
GitHub 2 years ago, but recommends Emacs 19.34 (which was released in 1996).

Personally I was more a Brief guy in my DOS days.

[1]: [https://github.com/dfr62/wormstar](https://github.com/dfr62/wormstar)

------
cyberferret
Wordstar was one of those programs back in the 80's that made me wonder how
masochistic some computer users would be in order to try and remember all
those dot commands and Ctrl keystrokes.

The along came WordPerfect and made Wordstar look like UX bliss... For the
life of me I can't recall which maniac thought up Shift-F7 (IIRC) as the
'Quit' key for WordPerfect.

~~~
Gibbon1
WordPerfect document formatting was and is total trash compared to Wordstar's.

~~~
NeedMoreTea
Wordperfect was far more powerful than Wordstar, you just had to get used to
operating in their strange kinda-sorta-but not really WSYWIG mode; and pull up
the codes view to sort out occasional oddities. All in the most unfriendly set
of shortcuts and codes imaginable. :)

WP had unbeatable table of contents, footnotes and index generation at the
time - far better than Wordstar, and Word.

~~~
eggy
Do you mean WYSIWYG? I am not familiar otherwise.

~~~
eggy
I was genuinely asking since I couldn't find WSYWIG vs WYSIWYG, and thought it
might be something else. Oh well...

------
wordpressdev
Started my word processing with Wordstar (and spreadsheets with Lotus123).
Those were the days.

------
andrewf
Anyone got a link to printed output produced by WordStar? I used it as a young
kid on my Dad's computer. I imagine that most "real" users printed the stuff
they wrote, but I've never seen an example!

~~~
anilgulecha
A modern day usage of similar output is the screenplay format. So the output
would look something like this:

[http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/A+Clockwork+Orange.pdf](http://www.dailyscript.com/scripts/A+Clockwork+Orange.pdf)

------
jkabrg
What's the advantage of Wordstar over:

    
    
      - Word
      - Emacs/VIM + Markdown + Latex + Pandoc
      - VScode/Atom + Markdown + Latex + Pandoc
      - LyX
    

Very cool otherwise.

~~~
gaius
The hot new thing this year is “no distraction” modes, running a single app
full screen with no notifications or any extraneous widgets. OSX and W10 both
have new features for it. I see this as capitalising in that theme

~~~
Bluecobra
This is hilarious, given that the big drawback with DOS was single-tasking.
Whats old is new again. I would agree that there are a ton of distractions now
and sometimes I need to close my email/chat to get any work done.

~~~
organsnyder
We've realized that though we've made computers good at multitasking, humans
really aren't very good at it.

------
memorysafety
> WordTsar 0.1.73.17 released

Why do you use a four-component version number?

~~~
realPubkey
Since the first number is zero, i assume that the additional number is to
express something more major than a major-update.

------
ratboy666
Always had a soft spot for WordStar. Last version used was WS 3. Took WordTsar
for a spin... Fast comments: Seems to be missing N (non-document edit -- used
that for editing program source). ^KH (hide block) is ^K> Not sure why (WS
4?). ^JH0 is missing (get rid of help). As are the other help levels. No pure
console display. And its big. 16M for GTK3. One file, though, which is very
nice. (compare to the original, 81536 bytes).

Congradulations! Very nice work

------
LanceH
Now I just need someone to service my daisywheel printer.

------
dangoljames
Hrm, really cool but what is the licensing?

~~~
mikestew
I dunno, what is the default license when there is no license? I made a good
faith effort to find one, including downloading and running, hoping for a
Help/About. Nope, no license.

Not that it stands a chance of being a daily driver for me. I appreciate the
effort put into it, but it is _way_ rough.

~~~
slededit
If there is no license you have no rights to the software. If they are
offering it for download there is probably an implied license to use the
software but certainly not to modify or distribute it.

~~~
Scarblac
As far as I understand, the FSF's stance has always been that copyright law
does not cover _use_ of a piece of software you have in your possession, and
they have done a lot of thinking on the subject. You can use the copy you
downloaded, no license needed.

Modification, distribution, making it part of another larger work -- you need
a license for those.

~~~
wahern
The FSF certainly has well considered opinions, but their opinions are in many
respects outside the mainstream.

People, even lawyers, often use reductio ad absurdum to argue that some
behavior isn't infringing. In a famous draft opinion in the Sony v. Betamax
Justice Stevens wrote,

    
    
      It would plainly be unconstitutional to prohibit a person
      from singing a copyrighted song in the shower or jotting 
      down a copyrighted poem he hears on the radio.
    

All the other justices disagreed with Stevens on the second point--it's
elementary law that to jot down a poem you hear on the radio is infringement
of the reproduction copyright.[1] This sounds absurd (and, well, it is!) but
copyrights and patents are a little absurd to begin with.

Usually the absurdity of the scope of copyright law is tolerable because of
the impossibility of a plaintiff discovering or proving infringement in
personal, private use. Other times courts may use Fair Use or other
technicalities to avoid absurd outcomes. But many times the absurdity lies and
people are penalized. In any event, courts aren't disposed to finding non-
infringement. Modern courts have narrowed considerably traditional theories
like merger and the idea/expression dichotomy that circumscribed the scope of
copyright outright. And it's non partisan. If Ginsburg had her way copyright
would see a considerable expansion in scope. (Her daughter is the author of an
influential treatise on copyright, which propounds a radically expansive view
of copyrights.)

[1] I forgot where I read the historical account about all the other justices
disagreeing on that specific point. I think it was in one of my treatises.

------
kazinator
Maybe this can woo Anne Rice?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#Notable_users](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WordStar#Notable_users)

~~~
mkl
Or George R. R. Martin, who "still uses the MS-DOS version of WordStar 4.0".

I used WordStar briefly at school on (ancient, even then) MS-DOS 2 computers
donated by a petrol station whose POS software was burned into the screens. I
didn't think much of it - I'd already seen newer software.

------
tinus_hn
Clever name but if Wordstar is still owned by someone there is quite a risk of
a trademark infringement suit.

~~~
dchest
According to USPTO trademark search, WordStar trademark is dead (cancelled on
August 14, 1995). This is US-only, of course.

~~~
Jaruzel
The trademark maybe dead but the product is not abandoned, nor has it been
released into the public domain. The current owners are Houghton Mifflin
Harcourt:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houghton_Mifflin_Harcourt](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Houghton_Mifflin_Harcourt)

I'm sure if they felt like it they _could_ assert their IP rights over any
clones or similarly named products.

~~~
dsr_
What IP rights?

The trademark is dead. That's naming.

Patents? Seems unlikely.

That leaves copyright. It seems unlikely that anyone working on a Wordstar
clone is silly enough to have even glanced at the original source, so that's
not it.

Look-and-feel? Dead issues. And there's no API to copy, not that I believe an
API is copyrightable as it is a functional spec. The United States Court of
Appeals for the Federal Circuit can bite me.

------
jbgreer
I used WordStar. Thank goodness Turbo Pascal used WordStar keybindings for
their commands, too!

------
mgkimsal
Screenshots are showing proportional fonts. Did that come in a later WordStar?

------
chris_wot
I'm disappointed they haven't released the sources.

------
jdlyga
WordTsar = Russian World Star

------
Lio
Really want to read about this but the webpage keeps messsing with the
scrolling on my phone and reader mode is unavailable.

For some reason the webpage keeps scrolling itself vertically. That’s not a
useful feature of a web page IMHO. :(

~~~
codetrotter
It does on mine as well. After I scroll down and start reading it begins to
make small jumps in the opposite direction. Weird.

~~~
wruza
That’s carousel or whatever frontend guys name it spinning at the top. Slides
with different height. Not a big deal, since it could open a popup, three
floating bars and gdpr warning after you explicitly accepted their tracking
cookies instead.

