Rob Barnaby, and Seymour Rubenstein may have been the two Steves of software. After 40 years, Wordstar stands alone as being the most influencial "Killer App" in history.
Excellent video about this excellent word processor. Wordstar was one of the first PC word processors I ever used, and when I got Wordstar 4 it was just about perfect at that time. Wordstar 4 (the one that George R. R. Martin uses) was the best version of Wordstar, it fixed the limitations of Version 3, while not trying to be Wordperfect like Version 5. As an example, it allowed you to use subdirectories on the hard drive rather than having to put all of the documents into one directory. One thing that set Wordstar apart was that it was designed for touch typists, with your hands rarely having to leave the keyboard. It also had one other feature that was great: On-the-fly mail merge. You could set up a Wordstar document so that when you print it it would ask you questions, and then would insert your answers into your document when it printed. Two things to mention: (1) Wordstar 2000 was a separate program from Wordstar 4. While Wordstar 4 was a upgrade from Wordstar 3, Wordstar 2000 was a new program that, from what I heard, bore little resemblance to versions of Wordstar. I remember taking a brief look at and I didn't like it. (2) Easy (which showed up in the commercial towards the end of the video) was also from MicroPro. It was a simplified version of Wordstar that produced documents compatible with Wordstar. It was shipped with the Commodore Colt computer (a MS-DOS machine). Later, Wordperfect did the same thing with the release of Letterperfect. Letterperfect was a simplified version of WordPerfect (used the same commands but eliminated many of the features of Wordperfect) which produced documents compatible with WordPerfect. It cost about 1/10th as much WordPerfect.
What I remember is it was a touch typists dream. Everything was Ctrl Key combinations, not having to muck about looking for Function Keys etc. The Dot notation gave it an additional range of controls, particularly for print output as I recall as the version(s) I used were not WYSIWIG, though I seem to recall later versions could do a print preview. I even remember popping some Hex Code in the back end with respect to printing some graphics on a Dot Matrix Printer. It was the first Word Processor I ever used. Very fond memories.
BTW: Young people where pirating the heck out of software back then. I used to make a buck here and there selling some popular software to business people commuting back then. Why pay $300 (1985 dollars) for one program when a teenager like me would sell you a whole damn 10 meg hard disk drive's worth for that much ? You bet we "copied ALL the floppies" and the salesmen at Radio Shack didn't mind- they got their commish of the blanks ! LOL.
Interesting follow up to the video. If you go to Chat GPT3 and query who invented the EULA, it will answer Microsoft, with a date about five years after Seymour says he did it. I got the video from Leo LaPorte, from a comment I made on his interview with Seymour on Triangulation.
It’s interesting to note that prior to the invention of modern copyright, something very similar to a EULA existed for a time on prerecorded music and commercial film prints - similarly focused on having a legal means to pursue copiers. So I would wager he simply adapted the idea for the modern context - but perhaps I should watch that Twit TV interview you showed a clip from to see if he mentions that. It’s kind of a shame that monopolisation has all but killed any word processor competition. Microsoft took the crown and now, arguably, Google currently has it. Of course other alternatives exist, I’m sure some companies even make money off their niche. But that’s just at the periphery of the market, especially since people expect it to be free now - an interesting long-term consequence of the bundling deal WS worked-out back then. Made money at first, but killed the market in the long run. The remark you make about stability vs innovation is really one of the key tensions in all of technology. You need enough access to resources, and stability, to bring your ideas to fruition. But too much stability often means you become set in your ways, just trying to milk pre-existing work without any innovation to balance it out. As a result, most of the really interesting stuff in word processing today is open source, but then we’re back to hobbyists with big ideas who only very rarely get actual large userbases. Still, you can’t beat a good, fast, compatible, text-mode word processor for getting in the zone. I like some modern open source ones rather than real vintage, but the core concept is very strong indeed. No GUI fuss, or other distractions, or formatting headaches. Just write, write, write. I understand why they did WYSIWYG, it helps bring newbies into everything, but I’ve really soured on them myself in the last 5 years. They take so long to start, they’re so needlessly resource-heavy. I avoid them now except for final chapter-spacing and stuff like that.
That is very true. I'm lucky because I have been able to try out a number of word processing software over the years. WYSIWIG seemed like a good idea when Office 4.3 came out, but I quickly switched back to my DOS copy of Word Perfect. In the early days "sharing" software was a great idea, but never allowed anyone to make money. I think Visicalc didn't help either. There will never be another Seymour Rubinstein, Bill Gates, or Steve Jobs. There was no one to tell them to be more binary.
I simply NEVER understood the company logo of Micropro. My first impression was that there was something missing. That my screen was not capable of showing all the details. Now I know that it was not me, it was just bad design.
WordStar 4 is most emphatically NOT the same as WordStar 2000, despite the claim at 11:30. WordStar 4 was, slightly revised, the WordStar clone Peter Mierau had written and had marketed as NewWord. (Also, despite your claim, Peter Mierau hardly faded into obscurity. He went on to a distinguished career at Adobe). WordStar 2000 was a completely different product. Also, despite your on-screen captions, Seymour's last name was Rubinstein, not Rubenstein.
WordStar 7 is still the best. It has a built-in Star Exchange program that lets the user convert a DOS file into MS Word file. No such feature in WordStar 4 which George R.R. Martin uses. He apparently runs it in a DOS emulator after his old PC died. So he probably directly opens the file in Word and works out the encryptions to make it readable. Such a chore. WordStar 7 is superior in every way.
The version they called "WordStar 4" in this video was released as WordStar 2000. In 1987 they released "WordStar Release 4" for PC and CP/M. It would be the last major program released for CP/M. MicroPro took years to release 4 and it came too late. By then file directory and mouse support had been supported by others for years. Microsoft Word for DOS was actually pretty good and in 1986 was a better choice for many.
