Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2018/07/18/wordtsar-wordstar-updated-f.html
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Perhaps because
- every writer is different and has a different approach to organizing and keeping track of things as they write.
- The tools needed for each kind of writing (novel, monograph, screenplay, poetry, etc) are different, and sadly the market for each is too tiny to support creation of optimized tools (especially when you factor in that Word plus Scrivener dominate most of the market and every other software tool out there is competing for scraps)
- Far too many software developers are unimaginative clods who just try to follow the lead of Microsoft Word, which means they produce a generic product that’s not really very good for any particular task other than creating business documents.
ETA: notice that WordTsar, still in an alpha state, lay fallow from 2014 to 2018, and the latest update is a refactoring (so, introducing new bugs but no progress on implementing more features of the original program he’s trying to recreate). My takeaway is that the market for a good writer’s word processor that is not Word or Scrivener is too tiny and too balkanized to incentivize him to knuckle down and get it out of alpha.
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With a name like that it must auto-correct “would” to “wouldn’t” and vice-versa.
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My father still uses Wordstar 4 for dos, inside Dosbox on linux for 90% of his coding work. Maybe this is something for him. though I doubt he’ll tolerate the slightest change to the setup he currently uses. 
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Aww, I remember Word Star. The bit I liked was being able to see the [escape sequences] embedded in the text. This let you catch things like having one italic space in a block of ordinary text. You could do WSYIWYG but it went off and did a separate render which took some time, so you wanted to fix as much in plain text mode as you could between each render.
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I forget if it handles WordStar formatted files.
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Quick, somebody tell Robert Sawyer: https://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
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The key is “without mousing”
In Pre-2007 versions of Microsoft Office Word, if there wasn’t a specific shortcut (e.g. ctrl-X for Cut) it was an obvious sequence of keys to execute any menu (e.g. Alt-E-T for the same thing – E for Edit, T for Cut).
Word 2007 still lets you execute the ribbon bar controls with keys, but it could be an 8-10 keystroke sequence, and I’d have to visually look at the toolbar to see what the next item is. Many of the old sequences still work (alt-A-C-T still selects a whole table, for instance), but I find I need the mouse an awful lot more in Word 2007 and newer.
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As someone who had to rescue documents from the Wordstar format, my feelings about this program are mixed. I suppose someone may have developed a better translator since the last time I looked, but I spent days manually removing cruft from between every word of each document.
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I was at Delrina when a merger was in the works with WordStar. The inside joke was that the new company would be called DelStarDotStar. They even had bling made, but the merger fell apart over who would be left in charge. (The other side was that Shark Tank Kevin guy who created an ENRON of software, and unloaded it just before it exploded.)
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I’ll have to try it, obviously… but you know, I’m not that sad that my days of CP/M and daisywheel-printers are over…
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You win the internet!
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Word 2007 and later are an abomination. Fortunately, copies of Word 2003 are available quite cheaply on Ebay and they still work.
For someone who is creating their own content and rarely if ever needs to open Word files sent to them by someone else, running an obsolete version of Word is the cheapest, most sanity-preserving option.
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For lots of files, there are paid tools just for converting from old formats to new ones, like File Merlin or WordPort.
For a budget of zero dollars, Word used to have a package of import converters that would handle files created by DOS versions of WordPerfect, WordStar, Amipro, and Word for DOS. These converters never came on the CD - you had to know they existed and then google them. And Microsoft discontinued them back in 2003. But they still work perfectly with Word 2003 (instructions for using them with later versions are available)
The DOS import converters were distributed as wdsupcnv.exe. They are no longer available on Microsoft’s FTP site, but with a bit of patience you can find a live download location with Google if the following link goes dead.
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In 1981, when I had to use both Wordstar and emacs, I configured the emacs key bindings to be those of Wordstar. I’ve used them all day long ever since. I can use vi in the usual way but I never learned the standard emacs bindings.
I guarantee that somewhere along the line, this conversation took place, either between different people or in one key person’s head.
“Hey, let’s update WordStar.”
“Eh, that’s a lot of work.”
“Yeah, but check it out: we could call the new version WordTsar.”
“I’m in.”
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I’m glad someone mentioned this. I learned the Wordstar commands way back in the day with Turbo Pascal and Turbo C. When I stated using Linux way back when, I discovered joe, and use it to this day.
I still have no idea how to use either vi or emacs, although I probably should learn one of these days.
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Craftsmen (and craftswomen) are often very particular about their tools.
I think you mean Wordperfect? I don’t remember any wysiwyg renders from wordstar. Or code viewing for that matter. But maybe it’s me who mixes them up, it has been a while 
