#Dos wordstar 7 manual#
#Dos wordstar 7 windows#

However, some editing functions, such as right-aligned tab stops and manual line breaks within a paragraph, were missing in all DOS versions.Д«ecause the CP / M operating system did not support standardized screen or printer output, it was necessary to adapt the user program accordingly. So you could also give commands to print characters in italics or bold - these were not displayed in italics or bold on the screen, but only highlighted by special indicators, but the printer printed them correctly (a print preview existed at the latest since DOS version 5 ). WordStar was also way ahead of the capabilities of CP / M and the screens of the time. There were variable tab stops, you could have the lines automatically filled with spaces to get justified, and there were 'soft' hyphens that were only printed when they actually stood at the end of the line. The capabilities of WordStar 3.0 (released in 1982) were immense. For commands that consisted of two keys (such as Ctrl-OL5 - put left margin on the 5th column), if you hesitated long enough after the first key press, the help window corresponding to the first key press could appear automatically. If you knew the commands, you could reduce the size of the help window or switch it off completely in order to have more space for your own text.

You could fill half of the screen with a help window that explained all the important keyboard commands. Many of these key commands were taken from WordStar-compatible editors, for example the Unix / Linux editor Joe, the MS-DOS editor 'EDIT' or the programming interfaces for Turbo Pascal and QBasic. WordStar brought many new functions, such as the WordStar cross or control diamond : the keys Ctrl-S, Ctrl-D, Ctrl-E and Ctrl-X formed a cross with which the pointer moves to the left, right, up or down - the arrow keys did not exist on many keyboards back then.

#Dos wordstar 7 windows#

The programmers Rob Barnaby and Jim Fox had developed new techniques for this relatively extensive program, such as the use of overlay (programming), that is, the processing of files that are larger than the working memory of the computer - because CP / M was running at that time on processors that could only address up to 64 kB of RAM, which meant that around ten typewriter pages of text could fit into memory at once.ДЄfter the program was initially available for CP / M, it was later ported to other operating systems ( Apple II, MS-DOS, Windows ). WordStar was first shown in April 1979 at the West Coast Computer Faire at Brooks Hall in San Francisco. The system programmer John Robbins Barnaby, who previously also worked for IMSAI, developed WordMaster for the CP / M operating system. The former IMSAI marketing director Seymour Rubinstein founded the company MicroPro International Inc.