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Game of Thrones Author George R R Martin Writes with WordStar on DOS
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: "Ryan Reed reports that when most Game of Thrones fans imagine George R.R. Martin writing his epic fantasy novels, they probably picture the author working on a futuristic desktop (or possibly carving his words onto massive stones like the Ten Commandments). But the truth is that Martin works on an outdated DOS machine using '80s word processor WordStar 4.0, as he revealed during an interview on Conan. 'I actually like it,' says Martin. 'It does everything I want a word processing program to do, and it doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help. I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital letter. I don't want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key.' 'I actually have two computers,' Martin continued. 'I have a computer I browse the Internet with and I get my email on, and I do my taxes on. And then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine, not connected to the Internet.'"
'It does everything I want a word processing program to do, and it doesn't do anything else. I don't want any help. I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital letter. I don't want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital. I know how to work the shift key.'
Amen, brother, Amen!
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
In one of his books, he also gives credit to the guy that keeps that outdated system running.
Why do people still pay money for software performing most basic tasks like Word 365? Nowadays, they have millions of alternatives.
..it takes him 5 years to write a novel. Now we know why.
You can't fit even the shortest of his books into 640K of RAM. AGoT clocks in at 298k words, which is going to take up considerably more than 640k.
I suspect he's probably got each chapter in a separate file. And if I remember correctly the CP/M version of Wordstar had an overlay feature that was a kind of primitive virtual memory. So yeah, I believe it's possible, and there's a lot to be said for Just A Plain Glorified Typewriter. (I got to review the draft of a book by one of the Mac's original designers; it was done in double-spaced Courier with crude hand-drawn illustrations. The formatting was to be done by those who did formatting.)
I'm increasingly using Google Docs for my work because I like the fact that it doesn't allow, and thus doesn't require, much formatting. Less time fiddling is more time working.
I still remember WordPerfect 5.1 running on DOS, once you had all the shortcut keys memorized, was lightning fast and did just what it was supposed to. I get so pissed off clicking on the little blue lightning bolt every 5 seconds to undo something Microsoft thought it was helping me "fix."
'I have a computer I browse the Internet with and I get my email on, and I do my taxes on. And then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine, not connected to the Internet.
And for the ultimate in security, he also uses 8" floppies.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
. . . but curiosity got the better of those eager NSA employee fans, who have bugged the computer to know what will happen before the rest of the world . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
For creative writing I use focuswriter, for the simple reason I can focus(!) better on the creative proces. All you see is your text. It's awesome. I can't do without internet, but I'm sure if I had the balls to disconnect my laptop I would become a whole lot more productive.
What does "obsolete" mean? If his writing instrument does what he needs it to do and he's happy using it, then more power to him. Who's to tell him he can't use it, or an IBM Selectric, or even a quill pen and vellum? Nothing is obsolete if it still works for your needs.
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
If it's working for him, then this makes sense.
What a non-story!
P.S. I assume that no words or names in his fantasy world have any accents or any characters not in the basic ASCII set. DOS WordStar is notably lacking in support for extended characters of any sort. (In fact DOS WordStar uses the high bits of characters for its own purposes, so it cannot ever work with anything beyond 7-bit ASCII.)
http://justsolve.archiveteam.org/wiki/WordStar
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
for a big delay. Oh... I was Just about to print the book when my ancient computer died. Oh well, talk to me in 5 years.
*giggles on his way to the bank*
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I'm not smart enough to make it
It will be better to purchase from an owner who is a good farmer and a good builder.
or Scrivener that's designed for writers, write a section and store it away for later and assemble your bits, chapters, ideas afterwards.
Add a document management system and an inbuilt-;'snapshot' system and you have a lot ore power than, say, with Word.
. . . but curiosity got the better of those eager NSA employee fans, who have bugged the computer to know what will happen before the rest of the world . . .
So that explains the *Beep* *Boop* *Hiss* sound he hears every time he boots up his computer these days....
That's how it's done. A person who doesn't worry about "support ending", or having the latest version, or what other people think about him using old tools. He has a perfectly fine tool in his hands, so he grabs it and starts working.
He (gasp) uses an OLD version of Windows because it (gasp) DOES the JOB? He must be some kind of criminal!
Oliver's law of assumed responsibility: If you're seen fixing it, you will be blamed for breaking it.
"It looks like you're trying to write a newsletter about incestuous elves. Would you like assistance?"
I'd be one to use WordPerfect 5, because of its bare minimum UI in edit mode.
What you hear in the ear, preach from the rooftop Matthew 10.27b
KVM...
Keyboard? AT keyboard. check.
Video? VGA. check.
Mouse? serial mouse. check.
... so technically yes. Or is that not the KVM you expected?
Every time someone complains about how long he takes to write a book he kills another Stark!
I only look human.
My mother is a halfling and my dad is an ogre, so that makes me an Ogreling
Probabl8y a Model M.
You're right, software doesn't age, but attackers will eventually find security holes in that software. You can continue to run Windows XP if you wish, but don't expect that software to get patched or have any other support. Do you think Mr. Martin could possible get support for WordStar?
...that he does his own taxes.
Doesn't this Game of Thrones gig pay enough for him to hire an accountant?
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.
Douglas Adams typed on an Apple IIe. Many authors bring typewriters or other dummy typing devices with them somewhere so they can remove external influences and distractions during their writing time
I do pretty much all of my text editing(coding etc) with JOE as well. I too started out as a Slackware user in the mid 90s. I had jumped straight from DOS(where I was used to WordStar) to Slackware, so JOE made me feel pretty much at home...20 years later, I'm still using JOE.
Might be why MS is trying to get a subscription model for Windows going. You get your unchanging software, and they get to make money.
Ryan Reed reports that when most Game of Thrones fans imagine George R.R. Martin writing his epic fantasy novels, they probably picture the author working on a futuristic desktop
Why would anyone think that?
Now I AM going to buy all the books and read them after the TV thing is over. I hope just about all "modern" word processor writers just felt a slap in the face, although part of it must be the users fault too. :)
-- Waiting semi-patiently for next weeks episode.
When asked for advice on "how to become a writer" - most professional writers will come back with some form of "write something, then write something else, then write some more." A big part of the writing process is figuring out when, where, and how you are able to write. i.e. The tools you use to write shouldn't get in the way of your writing (the second most popular tip is "when you aren't writing - read")
if Mark Zuckerberg were to come out and say that he is using a Commodore 64 or TRS-80 to work on Facebook - that would be unusual...
Mr. Martin's writing process has the benefit of being almost 100% secure (maybe Quentin Tarantino needs a downgrade)
It ain't what they call you. It's what you answer to. http://mylyceum.us/
Although one can turn off Microsoft Word's annoying "auto-guess" and "smart replace" features, I've found you have to do it in two different places, do it to each replacement character or sequence, and finding those two places is not intuitive.
Ideally, Microsoft would make a single button for "turn off ALL auto-guess and auto-replacement features". But that's not the Microsoft way: they want you to become dependent on auto-guess such that you'll miss it on competitor products and come running back to Mother Microsoft.
Their stupid "smart quotes" with the forward and backward lean are probably the biggest pet-peeve auto-shit feature of MS. If you paste such text into different products, it often renders them all wrong. MS's solution: "Only use MS products with MS text and everything will be just fine".
MS's behavior often demonstrates the stupid side of capitalism: naive customer manipulation, standards-rigging, monopolies, long-term dependency, bait-and-switch, FUD PR, etc. (I'm not saying there are no upsides to capitalism, but MS sure does a bang-up job of reminding one about the down-sides; if they bother to look around.)
Table-ized A.I.
I really hope the my prospects of downloading future episodes of game of thrones via bittorrent are not threatened by the reliability of floppy disks.
The best way to write anything is still pencil and paper. It doesn't run out of batteries, crash if you drop them (though the lead might break), and you don't have to put them away during taxi and takeoff.
I am Homer of Borg, resistance is - Ooo Donuts!
I will, from time to time, fire up my Apple //e and write in AppleWorks for a while. It's kind of awesome. There are not many features, and the simple text display keeps me focused.
The other thing I like is how the interface, the clackety feel of the keyboard, etc... all take me back to an earlier time. When I connect in that way, with that time, what I write will be different in subtle ways.
Good for him.
Blogging because I can...
I like old machines. People are so quick to throw away the past. Half the fun of using old machines is keeping them working. For me, it is a hobby.
So if I wanted to emulate Martin without having to dig up an XT machine, I would use DOSBox. But since I don't, has anyone used DOSBox for office-ware? How does the printing function work?
I also did some writing using WP 5.1 on DOS back in the day, but later I've come to realize the problem of word processors. The issue became apparent upon learning LaTeX, and since then I've wondered why people spend so much time on the "ink on paper" look, as opposed to the text itself. If you want to focus on text, you should try a plain text editor rather than a "fancy because it's not fancy" word processor.
Further links: http://iki.fi/teknohog/rants/w...
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
So is it really so surprising he's using DOS?
I think it's just a problem of ignorance. Do you think your mother or grandmother have ever even heard of "OpenOffice", or even know how to get it? Probably not. Most of the non-geek world just goes to Staples, walks down the aisle and grabs whatever program they've heard of, or used in the past. 99% of the time that's "Word"
I believe he is referring to a KVM switch, which would allow Martin to do his email, his taxes, and his writing all in the same room, at the same desk.
But then, what would be the point of Martin's writing studio?
George Martin said it, but I feel like screaming this about a dozen times a day. Don't change my words, my punctuation, or my URL. Don't suggest sites I might want to visit, items I might find interesting, or settings more befitting someone my age. Don't give me the ability to change all things *trivial* (e.g. appearance) but nothing that matters. If you're going to help, help me fix real *problems* and not just appearances. ("Ohhh, Microsoft helped me fix my network problem!" - said No one, ever).
In short, BUZZ OFF (And get off my lawn).
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Several of the Wordstar key bindings are supported in -- of all things -- "edit.exe" under Windows.
That being said, I hope he's using a machine with 3.5" floppies -- gonna start getting hard to pull data off 5.25" floppies in the not-crazy-distant future.
An iPad with the Wi-Fi off and with a $5 writing app and your favorite Bluetooth keyboard (chosen from about 30,000 options) is a great “digital typewriter.” Many writers have moved their writing to an iPad and their Macs are just for Internet and research and so on. Just having your writing on the iPad screen 24/7, your writing app always frontmost, is a huge benefit. Being able to close the Mac and turn the world off and just write is also a huge benefit.
I like the portability of the iPad, too, but if you always write in the same room at the same desk, it doesn't matter if your digital typewriter is an old DOS machine.
For a long time now, I thought that Linux-on-the-desktop should stop trying to make yet another Mac clone and make novel devices using Linux instead. Like a digital typewrite that George R R Martin would switch to.
I'd imagine that there's also a printer in the mix somewhere. While there are still some parallel port models available, I'd imagine they're hard to come by (and that work with DOS, yet).
I hope the GRRM has a backup strategy, because I'd hate to see what happens when that old system fails!
Sssht... you'll wake up the resident Windows 98 die hards.
Compatibility: we want our documents to look same if we hand them to somebody else. It's not easy to match MS-Word's layout engine bug-for-bug in another product.
Table-ized A.I.
Because if someone finds out the end of his story after it's already gone to print but before it hits the shelves it will make him upset.
Sneak in an ASCII Clippy into his WordStar just to mess with him.
Table-ized A.I.
It could do almost anything I ever needed at the time. It did have some weirdness like but it also seemed pretty bulletproof.
Because what he has isn't broken, so there's no need to buy a new one? His tool is pretty much a Typewriter Plus. That is: it writes text, like a typewriter does, but makes editing a heck of a lot easier. Need it on paper to read in bed? Print it out. Or use Paper Plus: the Kindle. It can read plain text that thing, right?
All you need to do is intercept a shipment of a VGA cable
RAGEMASTER: (see image above, right) A concealed $30 device that taps the video signal from a target's computer's VGA signal output so the NSA can see what is on a targeted desktop monitor. It is powered by a remote radar and responds by modulating the VGA red signal (which is also sent out most DVI ports) into the RF signal it re-radiates; this method of transmission is codenamed VAGRANT. RAGEMASTER is usually installed/concealed in the ferrite choke of the target cable
He doesn't need it, unless he's using that version of DOS that had a full networking stack built in that would allow hackers in. Oh, wait, there wasn't one. No, Novell doesn't count.
"Wait. Something's happening. It's opening up! My God, it's full of apricots!"
This is because, as a developer, you're a user who understands and knows what you want. Microsoft is writing software for the kind of people who'd type google into the google search bar to get to google.
You know, typing a domain name into search is not a terrible thing to do. It is a valid strategy to avoid domain name typos that may land you on a malware site.
I was just thinking this would be something a Raspberry Pi would be perfect for.
In fact, if Wordperfect was still around in a reasonable condition, they could just sell the complete package in a box (just add keyboard and monitor). Or they could just sell the SD card.
So mainframes are resurrected via the cloud and now dedicated word processors will be resurrected via pis. The 1970s are returning. :-)
Why do people still pay money for software performing most basic tasks like Word 365? Nowadays, they have millions of alternatives.
Well, a free Office suite is only free to your business if your employees are as well trained in that suite as they are in Microsoft Office.
I think a lot of people are switching to OpenOffice and LibreOffice on their home machines, but they don't use their Office apps as intensively in the home as they do at work so they don't learn everything they need to do at work.
Ditto. I've put Joe on every *nix box I've built or had to maintain.
It just works. And I learned WordStar when it was new.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
Back then you could crap a pile of text onto a page and not worry too much about formatting. Modern word processors are distracting, annoying and the documents they produce look like shit despite (because of?) all this. If I want a document to look pretty, I use LaTeX. Word processors of the WordStar era aren't much different than using a typewriter. As long as you don't try to use white-out on the screen, it should be fine.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
http://sfwriter.com/2008/12/25...
Goodbye Slashdot. You've changed.
The publishers I've dealt with won't accept a written manuscript. You must submit it electronically.
The rules are different for you and I and GRRM. If he showed up at a publisher with a 1,000 trailer trucks filled with clay tablets for book 6 they would sign a deal and cut him a check.
I know some (less-well-known) writers who do everything longhand until it's time to send it to the publisher.
CBS news commentator Andy Rooney used a manual typewriter for much of his work until late in his career or maybe even until he died.
I personally know someone who keeps a very large production database using a commercial DOS-based program from the early- or mid-'90s. This isn't some military or other scenario where there is a good reason to use outdated software, it's just the personal preference of the person who is maintaining the database and its contents.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
We've been developing text editors since we invented computers. I "only" have about 25 professional years of experience with them, but everything since wordperfect 4.2 or so hasn't helped us one bit to be more productive or less error prone in our writing. Sure, having a spell checker is nice, but the red squiggly lines under the text I'm editing there are all under words that *I* know are correct but the program doesn't. Current editors often do things to text I don't want. How I can undo that or turn off is often a mystery. With WP you had the option to look at the raw text with the markup in it so you could at least hack out the offending markup. Try opening a modern editor and finding a way to just hack around in the markup; none of them have it. I hate having to spend over ten minutes just trying to find out how to turn off some feature that some dude put in because he felt it would be helpful to me. *I* am the one typing and it's *my* document. Stop it, it's not helping my productivity, even if it's not guessing wrong any significant way. Did professional text editors get more productive the last 20 years? I don't think so, yet software makers have been adding features and whatnot to editors the last 20 years. Evidently, it's totally useless to do so, except for software companies. Editors haven't gotten any better, text producers haven't gotten more productive so essentially, it's a waste of time and effort for anyone but the persons making and selling the software.
I was promised a flying car. Where is my flying car?
As a visual minded person I would like to say, thank you. Thank you for that image. I do think you are right though, but I do hope he doesn't slashdot, he would it just for the nerd-points.
he would do it* Life is too short for proofreading, I read after and then correct. Much less time consuming. :'(
Is it just me or does anyone else think it's probably pretty unlikely that he's making any kind of backups if he's still using DOS? I can just see the future headline now....Game of Thrones author loses entire body of work due to computer crash. How many data recovery shops do you suppose still support MFM disks?
I would be hesitant about classifying him as a 'grumpy old man.' As the interview pointed out, he does use more modern software for non-writing tasks. He simply chooses to use an older computer for his writing because it does what he needs and it doesn't interfere with his work.
The thing with new computers, as with any other technology, is that they have benefits and drawbacks. Writers commonly cite distractions as a problem. These include everything from the urge to edit or format their writing to early, to temptations like the Internet. (Heck, some readers prefer printed books and dedicated ereaders to avoid distractions.) In other cases, writers don't want to mess with their workflow once they have figured out something that works. None of this involves being a grumpy old man, anti-technology, or whatever else you choose to label it as.
The other thing is that we're talking about production machines here. Many people avoid upgrading production machines because there is a lot of overhead to deal with. For example, turning off all of those features is something that you may have to perform with each software upgrade and it is almost certainly something that you have to perform with each hardware upgrade. If you are in the middle of a project, or picking up on an old project, data must be transferred between machines (in the case of hardware upgrades) and there may be issues with the portability of your files between different versions of the software (in the case of software upgrades). While the latter probably isn't an issue for a novelist upgrading between versions of their word processor, it is certainly true for an author who is switching word processors (which Martin would have had to do at some point if he wanted to stay current) and it is true for people who create more complex documents.
Now if Martin was griping about his publisher being unable to handle WordStar documents while expressing a fear of modern computers, you may have a point. The thing is, he isn't. Something tells me that the people who are translating his writing into a book aren't complaining about this quirk either -- if for no other reason than Martin's success.
I remember doing my reports back in high school on WP for DOS, on OS/2, the memories....
Just goes to prove if the tool does the job, why change it? There's also something nostalgic using old tools, a friend of mine still uses typewriters, he has about 15 of them, one can even do cursive, another one does french accents, beautiful craftmanship.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
the Lannisters, the Starks, the Targaryens, the Tyrells, the Greyjoys all plain English names
It is a common fantasy translation convention for the viewpoint character's culture to have plain English names. For example, the other well-known RR fantasy author based halflings' names on English naming patterns: Proudfoot, Baggins, Gamgee (from Gammidge, from earlier Gamwich), Brandybuck, etc. (No, Elijah Wood isn't related to Zak Bagans.)
honestly it's a refreshing break from the high fantasy [Unicode fail]
Tolkien's elves spoke a language analogus to Romance, and Romance languages have diacritics.
attackers will eventually find security holes in that software. You can continue to run Windows XP if you wish, but don't expect that software to get patched or have any other support.
Dogdude's point was that there is no fundamental reason to have moved on from Win XP basic design (at least for desktops and laptops I would add) or, in particular, from the word processors of say 15 years ago. The requirements of what they do have not changed. Of course, security and other bugs would need to be addressed as they emerge.
In the face of that, with the implication that they would not sell much software again after everyone is equipped with what they need, Microsoft and other software houses create artificial reasons for their users to replace it. It is marketing's job to convince the customers, or at least some of them (especially PHBs), usually by means of bling, bells and whistles, that they "need" to change; then others must follow suit for reasons such as their older file formats cannot be read by the PHB. The ultimate goal of MS (for example) is of course software rental because they would never need to worry about needing to persuade people to upgrade again.
http://partnerweb.vmware.com/G...
I wonder what his current backup solution is.....
I was working for a computer mail order place (Logicsoft) when WS 4.0 came out. The salespeople all got promotional lucite paperweights; I might still have one!
I used WS 3 and WS 4 to crank out role playing game manuscripts. For most of this time I only had a floppy-only PC-DOS system. This required juggling floppy disks when running spell check. It was great upgrading to a hard disk drive, but I maintained one-or-two-floppy running copies of WordStar that I could bring with me. Kind of like putting applications on a thumb drive.
I used WordStar X.X on an Osborne PC. The "OzBox," which lived in the campus SF library where I spent a lot of my time, had a program that could copy files to single-sided DOS floppies.
I was what you might call a Journeyman user of WS. I used "dot commands" and spell check and maybe even Mail Merge. There was still a lot more I didn't need and didn't bother learning.
I remember buying WordStar 5.0, but regretted it. It couldn't be whittled down to a few floppies.
I still had copies of WordStar (and various versions of DOS) until, um, late last decade, when I got rid of all my floppy disks. If Memory Serves, a fairly complete WordStar 4.0 install took up two 720K floppies. As part of the great reduction I converted all of my old RPG manuscripts to ASCII, so I didn't need a working WS copy.
I sometimes regret the loss of the "keyboard diamond" method of navigation. I could probably set up Word to use it, but it isn't worth the trouble.
Because 90% of all of the other users use office still too, and it gets the job done and they know how to use it. That doesn't make it good, but usually it makes it the best tool for the job.
Software doesn't age. Hence all the angst (my own included) about having to throw away perfectly good Windows XP. I still use lots of old software, including Winamp, Textpad, and DVDShrink, just to name a few. Many people's obsession with the newest *thing* is really fucking stupid, in many cases (word processing being one of them).
Software does, in fact, age. It ages against changing conditions, demands, and threat vectors. Semantically, it doesn't really matter if the software "ages" or the threats simply become more advanced. The result is the same. That's fine if you're not exposed to changing conditions or threat vectors. Don't fool yourself though - modern OS's are harder for malware to penetrate than XP is because of address-space layout randomization, enhanced security models, etc. The big advantage older software has is that it's more battle-hardened than newer software, and security can only every be "proven" through actual, real-world use. If you're in a perfectly static environment (at home off the net, or an embedded XP machine, etc), then obviously there's no need to worry. Or in the author's case, if he's only using that old machine to write novels, then obviously it's as safe as a typewriter and perfectly fine for him.
I'd argue that most slashdotters probably are expert-enough users to safely use Windows XP. Use Firefox or Chrome instead of IE. Install no-script and ad-blocker. If possible, remove Flash and Java. Don't browse sketchy sites or open e-mail attachments or docs from *anyone* unless you're expecting them. Blah, blah. Unfortunately, average users will not do this. They'll download all sorts of malware or spyware and install it themselves. They'll open any attachment from anyone they get, even if it's named infect_your_computer.exe. For the "average" computer user, they probably need a more modern OS to help protect them. Hell, that's why tablets and phones with high-security models are better for the average user anyhow.
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Ironically one thing I like about Open/Libre office is that it behaves *very* similarly to Office of about 6-7 years ago in terms of UI which I think was a pretty damn optimal UI.
Well other than the lack of outline mode. Which , annoyingly apple's Pages dropped recently too.
And which I have *no idea* how to find on the new fangled ribbon interface thing in modern Office either :(
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
> It's not easy to match MS-Word's layout engine bug-for-bug in another product.
I saw proof of that a few weeks ago. My mother's new computer, with a.new version of Word, couldn't open her existing Word files. I had to open them in LibreOffice and save them using the newest version of the newest Word format using LibreOffice. Then Word could open them.
So yes, in my experience LibreOffice is more compatible with Word than Word is.
Actually I think people overestimate how often "Office" is used in office settings. A lot of whats used tends to be specialty and/or niche apps specific to a certain task. We have around 550 computer users in our organization. Maybe 15% of them use Word and/or Excel. The rest have a specific application (or set of apps) that pertains to their job function. Since we've already switched to Gmail for email we're considering just having the majority of the users utilize Google Docs for the occasional time they need to use an office app, and reserving the full copies of Office only for people who heavily use it.
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
One can tell you have probably never written anything longer than a snarky comment comprising of a handfull of sentences on /.
If by this you infer that Martin is a 'Grumpy old man' then you have to be, at least mentally and intellectually, a 'Hasty immature child'.
Wordperfect on DOS was close to perfect for writing. WordStar was not far behind and, in fact, provided the virtually standard program editor keystrokes on microcomputers for many years. You could write as the muse took you, never needing to faff around with a mouse, or wave your hands against an increasingly greasy touch screen. The modern GUI type interfaces may work well for 'bears of very little brain' but real writers much prefer to get ideas from their heads into the computer with as little interruption and distraction as possible.
Why not go research a little more, before being disrespectful to someone who has likely been far more productive and successful than yourself, and subsequently shooting your mouth off.
Some authors just keep using what they started with and refuse to progress over a sense of self-superiority. Nothing he is complaining about can't be disabled in Word. Plus he would have features that would greatly aid his writing. He's purposely creating risk unless he prints out his work on paper daily of losing what he wrote. He causes publishers headaches as they have to take his files convert them to something useable. He makes them millions so they allow his 'quirks' but he's probably one of a very very few authors with that kind of pull.
You've got to be kidding me, WordStar. PC Write (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PC-Write) is MUCH better even if you don't ever want to edit disk sectors directly.
The alternative is someone who bought Word for Windows 2.0 back in the day for $495, and doesn't want to use anything else, because A that was a LOT OF FREAKING MONEY back then, and B it does what they need it to do, and they don't see any point in upgrading, because with enough messing around you can keep it going on and on forever. and heck with a dedicated VM, it runs more stable (all alone) than it ever did.
Why do people still pay money for software performing most basic tasks like Word 365? Nowadays, they have millions of alternatives.
Most people dont. The last time I actually bought Office was when I got offered it for $15 through work.
Businesses buy Office, they pay $50 a year per license and the PHB's have been suckered in by MS marketing.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Well other than the lack of outline mode. Which , annoyingly apple's Pages dropped recently too.
And which I have *no idea* how to find on the new fangled ribbon interface thing in modern Office either :(
You go to the "View" tab (the last one) and it's button number four.
:)
Just FYI
I use outline mode all the time. (And I also like the Ribbon, which makes me a heretic around here.)
No, that link you posted to a web comic we've all seen a hundred times is not "obligatory."
have you taken a look at most modern computers, a serial port is pretty rare in a laptop or a desktop nowadays. I have 3 laptops and 5 desktop machines around me ranging in age from 5 years to 2 months, not a single serial port to be had amongst any of them
I Envy You George...
I wonder if lotus 1-2-3 for DOS is free... then maybe I can use a VM to go back in time... aaah all those years ago.
The epitome of word processing was achieved in 1985 with WriteNow. It did WYSIWG formatting, pagination, merge, had a dictionary and a thesaurus in something less than 400 kB. Nothing of substance has been added since.
Not only what you said, but it is also useful for websites that are constantly being taken down and re-hosted such as The Pirate Bay. It has changed names so many times now I couldn't tell you what the addy is. I just throw it in Google and grab the first link.
If I were doing this type of writing I would want a monitor that doesn't actually exist - I would actually want an e-ink monitor the size of a legal size sheet of paper, possibly an 11x17 "tabloid" size. I know they used to make "Paper White" CRT monitors in the mid to late 90's, but the last thing I would want is a CRT. Failing that I would do green on black monochrome with an LCD, I can't seem to get away from liking that, but I would consider a PixelQi. Lots of light coming out of the monitor draws you into the screen and out of your head, the wrong direction.
Someone should focus on making a monitor specifically for writing. Those "Paper white" CRT's are the last thing I can think of with writining in mind, and that was more for the publishing end of the spectrum.
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Exactly. Reading through all the other comments in this thread, I kept expecting lots of people to point out how any of this was different from Vi, or Emacs. And they've been around, if not as long as, almost as long as WordStar. Except lots of people still use them and you don't need ancient machines to get them to work. In fact, it's a little disappointing that no one has showed him how to use either (personally, I'm a vi man, but I don't wish to start that argument) so he can avoid the risk of a terminally unrepairable machine.
The epitome of word processing was achieved a generation befor that, with PC-Write.
It could do underline, and italics, and real text characters!
Really, I think it was far better than wordstar, and even better than write-now. In any case,it was better for programming and could handle word processing okay.
Correct Horse Battery Staple: 72 bits of entropy. Enter "Correct H" into google. When it generates the phrase, that's
I still don't understand why Microsoft never implemented that fully.
"I hate some of these modern systems where you type a lower case letter and it becomes a capital letter. I don't want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would have typed a capital"
The next character to die on Game of Thrones is definitely going to be Clippy!
By the way, he's completely and utterly wrong. You need split screens with a separate notes file kept up in realtime to map logical events and maintain chronology or you'll open up plotholes a dragon could fly through. I always keep lists of what characters did what and any noteworthy "absolutes" that I mentioned about each character so I don't cause logical violations. He must be keeping them on paper or something as side notes because you simply cannot write a book without doing that.
Great, so use a RS232 terminal with a paper tty?
but here's the thing:
I've not heard anyone describe functionality added to MS Office since Office 2000. Excel has it's uses, but what have they done to it since, except forced people to learn new places for buttons?
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Fans of Terry Pratchett see nothing new or interesting in this announcement,
I have a good name for this new fangled device you are suggesting. You could call it the E-lectronic Typewriter!
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
You're no alone. First thing I thought about reading this interview. Wanted to scream "Are you bloody mad?"
As word-processors go, the old text mode ones rocked. Wordstar was pretty decent and I used it quite a bit back in the day before moving to the pinnacle of word processing, WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS.
I guess the only thing that would make G.R.R. Martin's statement even better is if he was using CP/M instead of DOS. ;-)
David de Groot Snr Systems Engineer
Yes, but a lot of alternatives just miss some functions that you just need or if you are reliant on macro's, well good luck converting all of them to other applications..
Free doesn't always mean better (just like paid isn't always the better one)..
Also having to invest time to get used to the othe application can get costly, if it takes you (in business) a few days/weeks to get used to the 'free' application, it's cheaper to just buy a license..
BUT then again, why upgrade to newer versions if the older versions are doing what you want? Office 2013 isn't more usefull than Office 2007..
Personally I'd love a bluetooth eink thing - slow refresh or not. Tablets with LCD screens suck for battery life and readability.
There must be some sort of hack other than VNC between bluetooth keyboards, bluetooth equipped phones (with wifi) and wifi eink tablets that can get text onto the things. Either that or a serial to bluetooth device on something where the information is available on how to write to the screen.
Some authors just keep using what they started with and refuse to progress over a sense of self-superiority.
It's like these dinosaurs that still use overhead projectors.
I don't have a dedicated DOS box. I have a DOS VM running on my server, complete with Wordstar 4.0 and many other programs I used to use back in the 80s and 90s. He's right that Wordstar is a word processor and nothing else. It's really quite powerful at it, too. He's also right that it does exactly what you tell it to do. It does not assume it knows better than you what you are trying to do.
Not that I am in love with Microsoft, but Excel has added quite a few "minor" functions since 2000 that dramatically increase usability.
For example, Excel 2007 introduced filtering and sorting by colors. And formats. Coupled with the existing conditional formatting, it significantly improved the ability of the software to sort based on any criteria, without using extra columns.
Going back a bit further, a key feature introduced in Excel 2003 was the ability to import xml datasets, and to set up templates quite easily which automatically imported data from xml files into preset columns. This can be done using macros, sure, but it's a lot easier to use the built in functionality.
I've not heard anyone describe functionality added to MS Office since Office 2000. Excel has it's uses, but what have they done to it since, except forced people to learn new places for buttons?
Exactly! And they didn't really even do that - they just converted the drop down menus into the "ribbon". They didn't rethink the logic. For example, it still throws me - after using Word for at least 15 years - that page numbering is on the "Insert" menu/tab. I can see "inserting" page numbers the first time I add them to a document, but most of the time I need that control, it's because I'm editing page numbers that are already there, so "insert" is not the menu I think of when I want to do that. It should be a "page layout" option - it's something that's usually fixed on every page, in a defined layout, regardless of what else is on the page, like headers, footers, margins, etc.
In short, Microsoft didn't take the time to rethink how people use Office and see if they could perhaps improve efficiency, with a cost of a learning curve while people learned the new way. Instead, they just converted the menus to buttons and sold it as a huge upgrade, at the cost of the learning curve for the ribbon with no net gain in the end.
Its not like he can mail somebody a 3.25 floppy! Well, he can, but who could read it?
I think people overestimate how well their own office situation extrapolates to the entire world.
Bah, you kids and your confounded "logic". :)
Excuse the Unicode crap in my posts. That's an apostrophe, and slashdot is busted.
Their bosses.
Mod parent up as informative ! /usr/bin/jstar
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or joe. You may not write the next Game of Thrones but you can get the same look-and-feel that he's having. Don't forget to unplug that wifi while you-re at it. Oops just had a blonde moment there.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
Joe's own editor does most of what WordStar 3.0 did, with a few taints of emacs.
http://joe-editor.sourceforge.net/
Binaries for Linux and Mac OS X, source for the rest.
--
People don't ask me for computer help much any more.
So folks learn LO on their own time? Then it's a win-win if the business dumps 365 and installs LO.
George RR Martin is not the only writer to select . . . unusual . . . writing tools.
I suspect that for a number of writers, the tools and the process has an influence on the flavor of the finished text.
Neal Stephenson wrote Cryptonomicon entirely in emacs. And he wrote the Baroque Cycle longhand with a fountain pen.
Use the tools that are appropriate to the task.
friends don't let friends teleport drunk