Old Software Information

This is a virtual museum and collector's guide for old software for microcomputers, along with a brief list of features and notes. While you can find older versions of software in many places, links to the pages of EMS Professional Software, this page's sponsor, are provided for your convenience. 

Main versions history page

MicroPro and WordStar International WordStar

The following is from a fellow who sold some of his old WordStar software to us:

The WordStar 5.5 belonged to me, plus I inherited three other
versions from my late father. I traded up to his WordStar 7.0D
for DOS which I occasionally use in a DOS box on Windows 98SE.
There are still some formatting jobs (such as slicing kilobyte
long columns out of data logs; search and replace for <CR>s
separately from <LF>s), that are best done or only possible for
me with WordStar. I prefer ver 7.0D since it has most options
(not all) plus the edit window are mouse-clickable. Since
WordStar Intl. never polished the mouse interface, some people
still prefer the keyboard controls for which ver 5.x works just
fine. The biggest difference between WS 5.0, WS 7.0D, WSW 1.5
compared to WS 5.5C is the latter's attractive binder manual and
shelf case. One cannot fully learn nor fully use WS without a
manual; it sure is easier to use, and add notes to a binder, than
a bound manual.

Some time in late 1993 or early 1994, WordStar Intl. closed their
support office in the Winslow Rd. building of the IU Credit
Union, here in Bloomington, IN. It was located here for some
period of time because, I heard rumored, that IU Bloomington had
the single largest group of WordStar users in the world. I had a
job at IU in the spring of 1984 during which I inventoried and
boxed the WordStars in just one department. They were licensed
workstation masters on 5-1/4" diskettes that closely filled a
5-1/4" cubical box. My supervisor later told me that he took the
label off of the box because the contents were worth about
$18,000.00. At about 10 floppies per inch, and assuming one
complete workstation executable per diskette, that would
calculate to perhaps 52 copies at $346 per copy. Therefore to a
reseller like me, WS has shrunk to maybe 1% of its peak value.

Best wishes,
Jim Berkey

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