Nobody Cares: Technology-only Edition

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Sci-fi writer re-releases WordStar for DOS

I got it working, had to set the path as one of the replies to the story mentioned.

But what if I am writing and I really want to use the phrase ":q!"?

You can, vim is modal, typing :q! in insert mode will just insert the text not quit.

 

[Free]

I got it working

And...what are you going to do with it?

 

[Erich Templar]

Ah, nostalgia. In my first programming job the secretaries in the office used Wordstar, on green-screen monitors even. I had a chance to play about with it a bit, but by that point Microsoft Word was already a thing, so I never used Wordstar in anger.

 

[Noodles]

And...what are you going to do with it?

Time to write my novel!

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

And...what are you going to do with it?

I did it for the heck of it.... I don't know maybe wear a tugboat captain hat and write a multi-book fantasy epic . Or write a superhero shared world using a tabletop RPG superhero game for the background. Sadly, I don't have a group of sci-fi/fantasy writers that played said superhero game to help me write it. I know, I have to move to Santa Fe, New Mexico and then start a superhero game in Albuquerque.

I might have to figure out how to switch the UI into something more like the older wordstars, this version has mouse support and doesn't have the traditional Wordstar command window on top. edit: Figured it out, use "Change Help Level" in the help menu, 3 gives you the classic look.

 

[Khamon]

And...what are you going to do with it?

Pretend like we're still teaching would be executives to use Wordstar, VP Planner, and dBase III+ I suppose.

 

[Casey Pelous]

... I never used Wordstar in anger.

That seems to be the only way I ever use MS Word.

Word does to one's work what Mr. Gates apparently tried to do to the female interns at MS. *mic drop*

 

[Noodles]

Time to write my novel!

Tangentially related, but I am actually working on formatting out a short-ish 35k word novella for Kindle, but I did not write it with Wordstar, I used Joplin and Markdown.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Coz I'm a nerd, CP/M wordstar on the C128, via VICE:

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

That looks like the old Star Trek text game interface.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

That looks like the old Star Trek text game interface.

Yes, it kind of does.

Though that's NOT the version I played, the one I played did not use polar coordinates and I think it had color too.

But getting back on topic, I replaced the toner cartridge in my laser printer today. My OLD Laserjet 1200 that I bought used. My mother had somehow found about someone retiring and getting rid of it and my old 640c DeskJet was annoying beyond belief and wearing out. This was in 2008, IIRC, and the printer was a few years old then. So yes, I've been using the cartridge it came with for 16 years.

 

[Noodles]

There is a really cool version of that Star Trek game on Itch.io that combines it with the Interplay Games Bridge scene.

 

[CronoCloud Creeggan]

Oh! I should mention that one of the reasons I have a nerdy appreciation for wordstar is that getting PC Write and Volkswriter to actually freaking print properly on whatever printer was attached to whatever machine I was using made me tear my hair out.

PC Write was a fucking mess, and while Volkswriter was easy to use, printing with it was annoying. IIRC it only liked the original IBM PC printer, not any of the others. And the IBM Printer was annoying, I preferred the Epsons or the later ProPrinter.

 

[Kamilah Hauptmann]

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Agreed, but I also love how the article decided to add this photo from a robotics lab that I guarantee is 100% unrelated to the people the article is talking about, just to ramp up the creepy-factor.

 

[Casey Pelous]

Coz I'm a nerd, CP/M wordstar on the C128, via VICE:

*/me strolls through whistling nonchalantly and "accidentally" drops a tempting link*

TeXstudio - A LaTeX editor

www.texstudio.org

*suppresses a "bwhahahahahahaaaaaaaaaa"*

 

[Dakota Tebaldi]

Oh! I should mention that one of the reasons I have a nerdy appreciation for wordstar is that getting PC Write and Volkswriter to actually freaking print properly on whatever printer was attached to whatever machine I was using made me tear my hair out.

PC Write was a fucking mess, and while Volkswriter was easy to use, printing with it was annoying. IIRC it only liked the original IBM PC printer, not any of the others. And the IBM Printer was annoying, I preferred the Epsons or the later ProPrinter.

I don't know what it is about printers but they've been the bane of so many computer users' existence ever since they were invented, lol.

 

[Argent Stonecutter]

 

[Knutz Scorpio]

Always expect to see blood flying when the guy punches it bare fisted.

 

[Noodles]