WordStar and Old Software Too Good to Stop Using

by
in linux on (#3KM)
story imageEvery day tech news is rife with stories about the latest and greatest, but some people don't want the latest and greatest; they want their old faves. The blogosphere is buzzing this week with the revelation that George R.R. Martin , the much-admired author of the A Game of Thrones and more, actually does his writing on a DOS machine running the old, 1970s word processor, WordStar .

Should that matter? I don't think so . Not one bit. In fact, WordStar and DOS have a couple of advantages over more modern hardware and software: probably no Internet connection, no icons, nothing buzzing or beeping or flashing at you. In sum, the perfect environment for focusing on your writing. Judging by the success of GRRM's books, it's working!

What old software do you use? Which old technologies do you hang onto even as the rest of the world chases the newest update?

Re: civ3 and pacman (Score: 1)

by danieldvorkin@pipedot.org on 2014-05-15 13:56 (#1MT)

I'm addicted to an ancient DOS shareware game called Conquest, basically a Risk-alike, that I've had on every computer I've owned since 1992. On my current machine, a MBP running OS X 10.8, I run it on the curent version of Dosbox, but on my previous machine running 10.6, I ran it on an old PowerPC version of Dosbox (which I actually liked better than the current version, sigh) and it amused me that I was using an Intel machine to run a PowerPC emulator to run an Intel emulator.

As far as productivity software goes, if I could use either WordPerfect 5 for DOS or WP 3 for Mac on my current machine in a way that would integrate nicely with the rest of the OS (printers, copying and pasting, etc.) I'd be really happy.
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