{"slug": "wordstar", "name": "WordStar", "category": "other", "category_name": "Other software", "description": "", "recommenders": 1, "commenters": 4, "warners": 0, "score": 1.721, "rising": -0.33, "first": "2026-05-13", "latest": "2026-06-27", "why": "It did pretty much everything you needed, and it didn't get in your way.", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 3, "compare": 0, "warn": 0}, "spark": [0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], "listed": false, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "It did pretty much everything you needed, and it didn't get in your way.", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["WordStar"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 769951824, "item_id": 48121989, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121989", "by": "Finnucane", "date": "2026-05-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It did pretty much everything you needed, and it didn't get in your way.", "excerpt": "I remember using Wordstar for CP/M. It did pretty much everything you needed, and it didn't get in your way. I was also a heavy user of XyWrite. One of the fun things about XyWrite was you could get it do almost anything. If there wasn't a code for it, you could insert printer controls directly into your file. As a production editor now, one feature those systems didn't have that we rely on is being able to track and", "context": "production editor", "use_case": "word processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordStar"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "js2", "context": "Apple II user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48700269", "date": "2026-06-27"}, {"by": "Finnucane", "context": "production editor", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121989", "date": "2026-05-13"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["word processing", "school homework word processing"], "compared": [{"slug": "joe", "name": "JOE", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48694853", "title": "WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121771", "title": "WordStar", "mentions": 2}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 1, "neutral": 1}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {}}, "quotes": [{"id": 779204304, "item_id": 48700269, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48700269", "by": "js2", "date": "2026-06-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I eventually switched from WordStar to AppleWorks.", "excerpt": "AFAIK, WordStar never ran directly on the Apple II. So you, like me, must've had a CP/M card, probably the Microsoft Z-80 SoftCard. And I'll bet that 80 column card was a Videx. I eventually switched from WordStar to AppleWorks. Somehow, I never used Apple Writer. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard https://www.wiseowl.com/articles/a2fpga-videx-01-the-card-that-made-the-apple-ii-serious/", "context": "Apple II user", "use_case": "word processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)"}, {"id": 779195872, "item_id": 48699742, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48699742", "by": "saltcured", "date": "2026-06-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used WordStar on CP/M for my school homework in the early-mid 80s.", "excerpt": "Yeah, I used WordStar on CP/M for my school homework in the early-mid 80s. (As soon as we had our first \"typing allowed\" or \"typing required\" kinds of assignments.) My dad brought home a circus of different PCs in those years. First a Sinclair ZX80 kit; a VIC 20; several Morrow Designs CP/M machines; Apple III, with a IIe emulator card; this interesting sequence terminated when he hit DOS/Windows and got stuck there.", "context": "", "use_case": "school homework word processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)"}, {"id": 769958081, "item_id": 48122380, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48122380", "by": "josefcub", "date": "2026-05-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I used it so much as a kid that I still have the WordStar keybindings stuck in my muscle memory.", "excerpt": "I'd started using DOS-based machines in the 80s, and ended up with a copy of WordStar 3.3. I used it so much as a kid that I still have the WordStar keybindings stuck in my muscle memory. There's one CLI text editor left with WordStar keybindings used natively: Joe's Own Editor. If you're like me and enjoy WordStar's key combinations and the editing paradigm, JOE is a good text editor to use on the command line.", "context": "", "use_case": "word processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordStar"}, {"id": 769951824, "item_id": 48121989, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48121989", "by": "Finnucane", "date": "2026-05-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It did pretty much everything you needed, and it didn't get in your way.", "excerpt": "I remember using Wordstar for CP/M. It did pretty much everything you needed, and it didn't get in your way. I was also a heavy user of XyWrite. One of the fun things about XyWrite was you could get it do almost anything. If there wasn't a code for it, you could insert printer controls directly into your file. As a production editor now, one feature those systems didn't have that we rely on is being able to track and", "context": "production editor", "use_case": "word processing", "switched_from": "", "story": "WordStar"}]}