I grew up using WordStar on the Apple ][. It was great when all you had was an 80 column card, a green phosphor screen and a keyboard, but I was never sad to leave it behind when GUIs were invented. I have nostalgia for the time, sure, but not for that interface and the multi-key-stroke commands you had to learn by rote.

Each to their own, and of course finding an optimal writing environment is a very subjective thing -- but it's not like there aren't modern distraction-free writing interfaces that exist.

In the same way as WordStar, there's a community of DOS WordPerfect 6.0 users who claim with some validity that it's still the best for writing prose

These programs are great for sitting down and writing with no distractions, but if you have a setup with directories full of word docs, text files, various graphics, even excel sheets all related to what you are working on that you need to refer to and cross-reference, they are less useful than an older version of Word or OpenOffice/LibreOffice. And they are difficult to export, share... there's a reason we don't use typewriters anymore, or DOS programs whose output is confined within a single program.

Followed the UCSD p-system of putting command prompts on screen. Useful but also irritating to attention and screen real estate.

Usefully showing end-of-line markers. I remember thinking compared to dec-10 ROFF (which iirc proceeded nroff etc) it was both simpler and harder.

Used it, never liked it. Ed was the way.

Interesting that the guy who wrote the article is an award-winning science fiction writer and also the author of FlashForward. They even made a TV series based on it.

If you're like me and grew up using pseudo-Wordstar keybindings (me by way of Turbo Pascal and Turbo C) you may appreciate JOE: https://github.com/joe-editor/joe

I believe George R. R. Martin uses wordstar to write his books. I still hold a little hope that he will finish A Song of Ice and Fire series.

I've long considered getting a netbook, slapping freedos on it and running WordStar or WordPerfect as a writing deck.

I'm not sure how I would get my files I create off the device since USB support isn't really a thing.

I still have memories of having to install Wordstar 2000 on 5 1/4" floppies. I think it was like 20 discs and painfully slow.

Using its text mode, WordStar made a pretty good programming editor.

I started getting into typewriters. I could've repurposed an old X230 and disable/remove the network card physically. But I also wanted to stop staring at a screen when writing, so I gave the typewriter a try.

It's still early and I'm struggling to write more than a few lines at a time. Not surprising from how I've been commenting "witty" one-liners in comment threads for over a decade. I expect being able to write long-form with no backspacing will need a lot of time to learn.

But I want to take back my attention. If there's one thing I've learned in the last decade, is that one's attention is a precious resource and it's time to be more deliberate in how I spend it.