Programs inspired by WordStar

[DMcCunney]

WordStar may be dead, but its influence lingers.  I learned WordStar "back in the day", when WordStar was the second editor you learned, because it might be the only thing available on the PC you had to work on.

The WordStar command set became a default standard that a lot of things used or could use.  This was fueled by Borland International.  They released the TurboPascal programming language and the Turbo Editor Toolkit for it.  TurboPascal was probably the first Integrated Development Environment for the PC.  It included an editor, Pascal compiler, and debugger.  Run it, and you were in the editor, ready to write Pascal code.  You could compile from within the editor, and if the compiler had a problem with your code, you were back in the editor, with the cursor on the line where the compiler choked.

The editor, and editors created using the Turbo Editor Toolkit, all used a variant of the WordStar command set.  An old blog post I saw recounted a story that Phillipe Kahn, Borland's then CEO, polled his staff about what command set to use in Turbo Pascal.  There were as many different answers as there were staffers, but everyone listed WordStar as their second choice, so Kahn decided to go with it as the best known solution requiring minimum learning from users.

I have a number of editors that use WordStar commands as the native set, or can be told to use WordStar commands as a configuration setting.  There's even a WordStar mode for Gnu Emacs, which I used to avoid retraining my fingers when working on Unix systems in Emacs.  (I normally use vi under Unix, which bears no resemblance to WordStar or anything else you've ever seen.  )

I think I still have WordStar 3.3 on a floppy somewhere, but I have an assortment of editors installed that use WordStar commands.  My favorite is probably Eric Meyer's VDE.  VDE began as a WordStar alternative for the old CP/M operating system on early 8 bit micros.  Meyer later ported it to MS-DOS.  It's still available, and runs fine in a DOS box under WinXP.  An assortment of third part utilities like macro compilers exist.

VDE was written in Assembler for size and efficiency.  The executable for the most recent version is only 90KB, and will fit on a floppy or a USB drive.  VDE can handle WordStar, WordPerfect, Word, XyWrite/NotaBene and standard ASCII files.  The main limitation is file size: an individual document can't be larger than about 80KB.  (VDE stores files being edited in slightly compressed format a 64KB buffer, which is where the limit comes from.)

For those who like really tiny editors, there are TE (10K) and SHH ED (16K, with mouse support).  Both use a subset of the WordStar command set (and both share the 64KB file size limit.)

Interested parties can find them here:

VDE: http://short.stop.home.att.net/vde.htm#vdemenu

TE: http://www.xs4all.nl/~ferguson/dosedit.html

SHH ED: http://shh.thathost.com/pub-dos/

Do other folks here use things inspired by WordStar?  If so, what and why?
______
Dennis

[PGAGA]

Thursday 29 March 2007

The cutting edge WordStar program is Write&Set, www.writeandset.com.

This uses WordStar 4 format  and key mapping.

Phil

[DMcCunney]

I have that installed here.  The novel feature is having the editor and formatter as seperate programs.  that was common years back, in places like Unix, where you wrote your text in vi and formatted for prining with nroff, but is uncommon now.

For "cutting edge", I load WordStar mode in Gnu Emacs... 
______
Dennis

[PGAGA]

Saturday 07 April 2007

I have that installed here.  The novel feature is having the editor and formatter as seperate programs.  that was common years back, in places like Unix, where you wrote your text in vi and formatted for prining with nroff, but is uncommon now.

For "cutting edge", I load WordStar mode in Gnu Emacs... 

I guest cutting edge for me (need a smiley with a knife smile) has to use the WordStar format without import and export.  Since Gnu Emacs does not use the WordStar file format, it is simply another in a long line of files with WordStar key mapping.

VDE continues in development (I started with VDO under CP/M) and reads the WordStar format well, but it is a DOS program which runs in a VDM on 32 bit systems.  I use it under WinME, WinXP and eCS.  W&S is a 32 bit which runs natively in those operating systems.

Yes W&S lacks some of the GUI integration that hides use of multiple executables, but the two parts are well integrated.  If WSedit is your primary then ^KF opens WSformat and one can print.  If one wants to use templates, one uses WSformat to create new files and open old ones.

Unlike WSDos which hides the formatting when a file is closed, the user has to tell WSformat to format (theoretically one can edit from scratch in the FMT mode and bypass formatting).

The other drawback with W&S is that the languages for spell checking are limited to German and English.  I have tried to create a French dictionary, but have yet to find the French equivalent to the 12 Dictionary project.

Phil