June 26, 2026
Ctrl+Alt+Delightfully Ancient
WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)
The ancient writing app inspiring fandom, eye-rolls, and Game of Thrones jokes
TLDR: WordStar, a writing program from the late 1970s, is being celebrated again because major authors swore by its simple, distraction-free style. In the comments, fans got nostalgic and dreamy about retro writing setups, while skeptics mocked the hassle — and naturally turned George R.R. Martin into the punchline.
A 1996 love letter to WordStar, an old-school writing program from the floppy-disk era, has the internet doing what it does best: turning nostalgia into a full-blown comment-section soap opera. The article itself is basically a glittering hall of fame for WordStar, with famous authors like George R.R. Martin, Arthur C. Clarke, Anne Rice, and Michael Chabon praising it like it’s not software but a sacred writing relic. The big claim? WordStar helped writers focus because it was simple, fast, and didn’t get in the way.
And the comments absolutely ran with that. One camp was instantly tempted to build a distraction-free “writing deck,” with one reader dreaming of a tiny laptop loaded with FreeDOS and WordStar like some kind of novelist survival bunker. Another dropped a quick WordTsar link, basically saying: yes, the cult is still alive. But the pushback arrived fast. Critics argued that romanticizing ancient software is cute until you need to actually share files, organize research, or work with pictures and spreadsheets like a person living after 1998. Then came the trauma posting: memories of installing WordStar 2000 from 20 floppy disks, which sounds less like productivity and more like a hostage situation.
And of course, the biggest joke in the room was inevitable: if George R.R. Martin still uses WordStar, maybe the real enemy of The Winds of Winter isn’t writer’s block — it’s retro computing. The vibe was equal parts admiration, disbelief, and playful roasting.
Key Points
- •Robert J. Sawyer’s article argues that WordStar for DOS remained the preferred writing tool for him and a number of science-fiction authors.
- •The article states that WordStar was first released in 1978, before keyboard layouts and function keys were standardized across computers.
- •Sawyer says WordStar’s command system relied on control-key combinations because many early keyboards lacked arrow keys and other dedicated controls.
- •The article identifies Seymour Rubinstein and Rob Barnaby as WordStar’s original designers.
- •Sawyer explains that WordStar’s key command layout, including ^J and ^K, was designed with touch-typing ergonomics in mind to make frequent functions easier to execute.