Here is what I did for writing distraction-free: Long story short, I bought a Raspberry Pi and installed Ubuntu for Raspberry Pi on it. Then after installing the software packages I wanted, I uninstalled its only internet browser, Firefox. I connected it to my mechanical keyboard and a large monitor. It’s now like a mechanical typewriter! The whole setup costs me $100 (excluding the keyboard and monitor because I already had them). My new setup is still connected to the internet, but it does not have a browser. No web surfing anymore. As I still have internet access on Raspberry Pi, I can push my work to Github using the command line. I have created an email account specifically to send or receive articles or ebooks between my Raspberry Pi and my usual computer. I don’t use that email for anything else.
I'm a copywriter. I've tried everything including Vim and Emacs. Org-mode is good but Emacs requires coding knowledge to configure. I learned of WS4 recently and use it heavily for all my writing. Download vDos, drag and drop WS4 into the vDos folder (I personally create an apps directory) and away you go. I can't link to WS4 as it's still technically illegal to use unless you've paid for it. Also to add, you can use Pandoc to convert your .DOC files to any format you require, even Markdown. I convert them to PDF personally.
For anyone using Linux, imo the best distraction free environment for writing in a similar fashion: - ctrl+alt+f1 (or from f1 up to f6 to open a new tty - which you can have multiple running at the same time, btw) - log in to your user - nano .txt And the end result is a plain txt that you can later edit under any other program you want to use via copy/paste under the GUI environment (via ctrl+alt+f7), even while still modifying it in another tty. As always great topic to discuss about!
Thanks! And yeah, I think logging only into a terminal on my laptop will be the way to go (potential expansion video?). Just running terminal in OS is not any better. Yeah, knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
pajodato I've never used WordStar, but seems that I can make some simple formatting in it like put the text in italic, centre paragraphs, etc. Does JOE do it? If the answer is no, is there any FOSS software really similar to WordStar (I mean, a program in console where I have some power of text formatting)?
FocusWriter es the GOAT Right now. And Free???? It's a damn shame MacOs is no longer supported. I sent a mail to the creator of FocusWriter and he told me his Mac was broken or something, so he can no longer compile the program there. 😩
Also knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken. BUT if I JUST login via terminal (no X/Unity) to my laptop, that could work
Midnight Commander (BSD/Unix/Linux) and use the build in Editor $>mcedit. You can customize colors for FG and BG and have some nice functions like: search and replace or even spell check. For me the best way to write long plain text. The only missing feature is an autosave-timer. But its open-source, so can be implemented. Just run shell: apt-get update apt-get install mc mcedit
WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Could give that a try. It's what I've been taught to use in high school way back in the day. That and Microsoft Word for DOS as well.
Cool! Finally to see someone from 20xx to actually appreciate WordStar. I have WordStar 6.0 still on my 2021 Dell PC running thru DoxBox. I bought this way back in the late 80s and still keep it since then. Thanks for sharing. Wish you the best. God bless.
On the subject of distraction-free writing, Wordstar had Help Levels which provides on-screen assistance as you are using the program. It looks like you are using Help Level 3. At that Help Level the on-screen lists of commands are always visible (which takes up a large portion of the screen). At Help Level 2, which was what I used, most of the time the list of commands are not visible which frees up most of the screen. However, if you hit a command like Control-P and wait a moment the sublist of commands will appear. If you hit the commands quickly (such as Control-P B to insert a Bold Mark) the sublist of commands won't appear. Also, the sublist will disappear once you complete the command. As you gain experience with Wordstar, you can raise the Help Level when you find you need less and less help. I got good enough with Wordstar that I would think of something and my fingers would automatically hit the keys. A final thing to mention about Wordstar is that it was designed for touch typists. Users could leave their fingers on the Home Row, rather than having to reach for a Function Key like Wordperfect. Another distraction-free program to mention is Professional Write. It was designed to be simple to use (most of functions were accessed via Function Keys or Command and a letter) and screen was basically designed to simulate a sheet of paper (blank lines at the top and bottom of each page and blank spaces on the right and left). Other than some information at the top and bottom, the rest of the screen was dedicated to your writing.
Although I purchased it for the spell checking, I actually ended up using the Grammarly editor for most of my writing... No text formatting possible whatsoever but the font is very easy on the eye (a thing I am very picky about). All that's left on the UI are content related options (spell checking, plagiarism check, etc.) and they are unobtrusively placed to the side and can be disabled any time with a single click. You might wanna give that a try and it's certainly much easier to handle than having to work in a DOS environment (compatibility, etc.).
Why not just user a text editor? That is the most distraction free experience you can get. You don't have to worry about formatting or spelling either.
Or, you can get one of them old IBM Thinkpads (like t60/x60/t61/x61/x200 etc...), Install GNU/Linux (Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, Parabola, gNewSense or other) or BSD variant (OpenBSD FTW) on it. Do not install X environment (GUI is for the weak) and use Vim (or if you reaaaaly want to, Emacs) to work on your LaTeX document in a Tmux session on a remote server in, say Russia, via encrypted SSH connection running through multiple i2p/Tor relays.
I use Wordstar 4.0 to write. Just use DOSBox, and then open the documents with Corel WordPerfect. WordPerfect converts them directly, and that way you don't have to do any annoying formatting to make the file actually look right.
Quick question, what do you do to your audio? It sounds very powerful and nice! It doesn't sound like you just recorded your audio and put it into the video. I'm really curious as to what you do to make it sound so good! :)
I use Wordgrinder, which runs in a terminal and has that whole retro vibe going on. "But it's ugly and basic and so boring!" Yes, it is, which is why I also run Cool Retro Term to sex up my terminal. You end up with a funky, highly configurable terminal (you can get it to look like an Apple IIE or a Commodore 64 among others) and a distraction-free word processor in Wordgrinder. Awesome combination. cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term I'm running Antergos, and both of these applications are available via the community repositories, but the links above should sort you out if you're interested.
Part of the power and beauty of WordStar back in the day was its ability to insert printer break codes, so you could send printer commands directly to the printer from within WordStar. This meant that if your printer supported multiple fonts or proportional fonts, or other weird features, WordStar supported them, so long as you could figure out the codes. Yeah, I was geek enough to figure them out. I could look at a WordStar screen, and "see" how it'd appear when printed out (like the Matrix) ;-)
As far as converting wordstar files to usable text, there are numerous conversion programs available on the web, which make this task very easy. You also said FocusWriter is buggy on Linux; I have used it extensively and have not found any issues at all. Another Linux option is WordGrinder, which is small, fast, and even simpler than FocusWriter.
If you're set on using DOS, but you're still stuck on the more modern keybindings for cut-copy-paste, etc, Word 5.5 is (or was at one time) free on Microsoft's website and produces files that can be opened in modern word processors like Word and LibreOffice.
For the broader context, have a look at Matthew Kirschenbaum's work (recordings on TH-cam, "Track Changes" book). In summary, computers were initially used for data processing, and analogous to it, "text processing" was promoted to industrially slice, automate and optimize office paperwork production (previously on typewriters by secretaries). It started with dedicated mechanical-electronical text processing machines that kept keystrokes in memory for correction instead of relying on Tipp-Ex (which often wasn't an option in professional letters that had to be "perfect" as a matter of prestige and image) or rewriting whole pages, and later with software on computers. With graphical user interfaces not yet available, more work went into designing text operations, a lot of which got abandoned later because of increased focus on typography, layout and desktop publishing (back to Gutenbergs manual hand-typesetting I guess). George R. R. Martin likely developed his WordStar writing habit when it was a popular product in the market (among plenty of others, each offering a different set of features), and as it's not continued any more and learning the tool was an investment as well, we can easily see how one would want to stay with it forever and modern alternatives only appear to be downgrades.
If you ever check out i3wm, it has a binding, mod-x, that will fullscreen the selected window. It's very nice. Your tiling layout stays the same when you unfullscreen as well. In addition to distraction-free working, it's very handy for running games where you want and how you want. Put them in windowed mode and on whatever monitor or workspace, and then fullscreen them and forget they're even windowed.
I am still using command-line version of WordPerfect 8 for notes and all the university work. All I need my word processor to do is just writing the damn text and doing it without all the fancy stuff that makes my computer laggy. A text editor such as vim, nano or notepad would be also useful, but having an option to do bold or italic fonts is pretty cool when you write for studying. I carry a 32-bit HP netbook with a Linux system on it, so a fancy editor would cause unnecessary lag. If I need to do a legal research or something like this, I can run WP in a tiny xterm window with web browser running next to it on a larger window - it's very useful on a small netbook screen, since Word or LO Write would be obscured by the toolbar itself in such setting. Not to mention the distraction-free thing. I have an old Pentium MMX laptop that is not connected to the Internet (nor has any means to do so, other than an RJ-11 modem, which is obviously obsolete) and an old version of Microsoft Works on it, alongside with TAG (an ancient Polish text processor).
Well, as an old DOS user, I can advice you that if you like the minimalistic experience of WordStar, you can still use cygwin (or Linux) and... the text-editor Joe, which is a terminal-based simplified text-editor with a lot of commands, syntax and caveats derived or inspired directly by WordStar itself (most of the ^K commands are the same, indeed). Moreover, it saves in plain text format (you might have some troubles with text attributes, in this case, but I guess you're mostly trying to find something as easy as open->write some text->save->close (anything else will follow later). As a general rule, if you consider the "Text-based" interface a valid alternative to be productive, a lot of Open Source projects can help on the purpose of let you write without distractions, starting from VIM (which has kind of a steep line to learn how to use it, because it works under two statuses: command mode and editing mode), passing through things like Joe, Nano, mcedit and so on, up to the project EMACS, which I'm not sure if we should consider it a text-editor, or more like an entire operating system hidden inside an editor interface 🤔😱 Apart from that, I have to admit I've tried FocusWriter but, after a lot of time, I'm still a friend of Joe for everyday writing routines, plus Notepad++ for text revisions on job (plus LibreOffice to impaginate). Ok, and Microsoft VSCode when programming, but while programming you definitely appreciate an editor with syntax hilight and that helps you in debugging. Anyway didn't knew Martin was using WS4 🤯
Cool video on retro-tech... If you're really searching for true, distraction-free writing and want to embark on a couple nerdy tech projects, I have a couple ideas. Using modern technology and a "thin client", you could provision a login and password that only allows access to your word processing application of choice. You'd have all the benefits of a Microsoft Word and save the files on your server, but basically if you imagine the most strict network environment at an office where a user is only allowed one application and maybe access to a printer/PDF writer and you've got the idea. Another idea that might be even more fun and provide you with more retro-tech review opportunities would be to get yourself a Commodore 128 and the GEOS (Graphic Environment Operating System)... Think of how Windows used to sit on top of DOS as opposed to how it functions now and GEOS was actually one of the first GUI based operating systems that people rarely give credit to.
That's probably because "GUI based operating system" is a somewhat strange concept I guess. Rarely credited as well are Ivan Sutherland with Sketchpad and Douglas Engelbart with NLS. People rather like to hear a (Xerox)/Apple/Microsoft story.
Wordstar can edit plain text as well as it's native format. It's native format is not ASCII, it is ASCII + formatting. ASCII is a 7 bit character set, Wordstar uses the unused 8th bit for it's formatting commands. Importing as US-ASCII sort of works because it strips the high bit. There are tools and filters to convert it, and a Postscript driver. I would probably say the best way to retain it's formatting abilities is to print-to-file using the postscript driver, then there are tonnes of modern tools you can use with it.
FreeDos fullscreens with altGr+f. However, if you only care about the productivity, you could use VIM, Emacs and simply use a fullscreen xterm, or better, not start the X server at all and do everything from the TTY. This is what I do to code and do my emails. If someone wants to invest the time, the better option to write professional looking documents (and faster after you learn howto) is using LaTex
I surprised no one has suggested wordgrinder or atleast from what I could see. You very well could run it in a linux environment with no x server implemented and it has plenty of nice features aswell as being able to import and export to libreoffice.
I would either remove X from autorun on the laptop or dual boot a tiny system without X and then run Wordgrinder or Nano. No distractions and no file conversion issues.
(stares in LaTeX). ...Kidding, I mostly use that for math documents and other specific academic cases. But I am legitimately curious if any writers make use of TeX-derived tools in that way.
What about installing Linux/BSD without X and using Emacs or vi? You can write it with LaTeX/pdftex to format it. It should be possible to set up a printer as well, but that might be trickier depending on how well it is supported.
I forgot to mention you could install it on a USB stick. There are still commands to access the network. You can use git to keep a history of changes and to back it up elsewhere. Wget and Lynx provide basic internet access
2:12 There are many use cases for DOS to this day, in embedded systems, some specialized servers, recovery, whatever small/specialized little computerized electronical device you have. But then, FreeDOS might be more tailored towards an actual daily human user. 3:26 and 3:42 What are the document conversion issues? Maybe there can be done something about it. FreeDOS is libre-freely licensed, LibreOffice as well and plenty of plain text editors. 3:55 Hey, if it were XML from the beginning, everything would be perfect! 5:03 Distraction-freeness isn't the only thing we could rediscover from earlier times, in which text was handled differently and in more advanced ways simply because there was zero concern about graphical user interfaces, typography, layout or print during the writing process.
WordStar came with a document conversion package called Star Exchange, and this can be used to convert documents from WordStar format to .rtf format (which Word can open as a modern document); www.wordstar.org/index.php/11-wordstar-file-conversion I have a copy of WordStar 7.0C (the next to last version WordStar produced) but unfortunately it's on floppy disk and my computer no longer has a floppy drive. I still miss it sometimes; all the keys you use most often are near the centre of the keyboard.
RTF can be way worse than some form of ASCII, but there could be a decent-enough RTF converter maybe. I guess an USB external floppy drive is a good thing to have in the household in any case ;-)
You can also use HABit Wordstar Converter to convert the WordStar documents to just text documents, and open the text document with whatever application you want to. www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/HABit-Wordstar-Converter.shtml
EposVox no You can have your machine running headless and SSH into it(You have to tunnel the x display if you want GUI, you have plane old terminal to execute commands. I hope you get what am trying to say😅
Steven Hum of thedarnedestthing.com uses Vim on linux with a manual window manager, with his own configuration. He runs his website with vimroom, which is a plugin for Vim. A very small ergonomic keyboard, chimera ergo 42 (42 keys) with an incredible key config and his own BEAKL letter layout.
Try NANO and or Vim. Both are terminal based and you won't need a VM. Heck I think Nano is per-installed on OS X as well as every Linux distro. I've got an old Toshiba NB505 netbook running Debian with a decent keyboard that I use for writing and coding only. It's basically useless for web surfing due to the 10 year old Atom processor
This is late, but... I notice in the comments that you carefully avoid discussions of vi or Vim. Still, there are text editors that emulate WordStar, such as Joe and Jupp (a fork of Joe). One setup no one has mentioned is to use a text editor (any text editor) and Pandoc. Pandoc is a command-line program that takes plain text files and converts them to a variety of formats, including OpenDocument. It can accept an OpenDocument file as a template. This means that you can set up a document in LibreOffice that contains the page and text styles you need for submitting a document, save it as an OpenDocument file, and use it as the template that Pandoc uses for formatting your text. Then write in your text editor and forget about formatting altogether. The advantages that an editor like Vim or Neovim has over other editors is that its visual display is totally absent any menus (it can even be configured to have no status line) and it's commands are all touch-typed just like the text you type while composing your documents. Its commands are a mini-language of nouns and verbs that let you compose very specific commands tailored to the text you are editing. Your eyes never leave the screen because you are touch typing everything and don't need to search for the control or alt keys or contort your fingers to type a multi-key command. This translates to unbroken attention to the text. These programs are meant for programmers who often use an edit-compile-debug-repeat work cycle and use editors such as Vim because they can be configured to automatically run a compiler and a debugger when saving their work. This feature can be leveraged to invoke Pandoc on your files automatically. Terminal emulators such as Konsole in KDE Plasma can be made full-screen with the F11 key in that environment. Imagine a full-screen session where you are touch-typing both text and editor commands and where you don't need to do anything at all to generate formatted documents. That's Vim, Pandoc, and Konsole.
This is cool that people are still finding use for old tech in current times. Though, not to be too critical, but couldn't you just full screen microsoft/libre office, or is knowing that youtbe videos are an al tab away still sort of distracting? > > ... I won't deny I've done it.
Yeah, knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
I use vim for all my writing. I can't imagine this being better. Emacs is probably good as well, especially if you wanted to use LaTeX in your document.
I use Vim for programming all the time. I used to write in it, but since trying WS4 I really like it. Org-mode is a good alternative but as a Vim fanboy I'm not super keen on emacs in general.
DOS isn't as hard to use as people make it out to be. The commands are straight forward, not at all complicated to learn. You can even make a cheat sheet that'll get you through most of your day to day needs.
I agree that DOS is not hard to learn. The way I did was have my Manual handy and when I needed to find something go to the Manual. As time passed I needed to go to the Manual less and less as I remembered what I had learned.
You might want to check out wordgrinder. cowlark.com/wordgrinder/ Minimal, distraction free, more modern. It can export to plain text, word doc, libreoffice doc, rtf, html, etc.
I hae quite a few old machines, and I ended up here cause that is exactly what I intended to do... I am finding it very hard to concentrate and keep disciplined with ready access to internet.... I was really aiming for DOs-based word perfect, ... word star, and famous program, I should also consider it. but for this to work like intended, you wuold want it on a seperate machine, to go to another physical space where you are alone with that tool. basically turning a computer a digital typewriter.
Causes problems on my computer, and isn't truly distraction free. It's still running within a distraction-filled OS. Yeah, knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
Focuswriter is probably the best distraction free writing software I know. But if you want to use DOS and WordStar, don't use a virtual machine. That's just more hassle than is needed. Get a somewhat old laptop for cheap, install FreeDOS and WordStar on bare metal.
@@EposVox That's also why you want a laptop from the early to mid 2000s. I know the ThinkPad-Typing-Experience™ is somewhat cliche by now, so I'll just say that HP and Dell had some fantastic keyboards too during that era. The real problem with these machines is that you're going to be stuck with a CCFL backlit display.
Technical sophistication on the side of the editor/publisher can't be always assumed, and then, depending on circumstances, one side may force its habits onto the other. It can be a "service" a publisher provides for an author to type his handwritten manuscript into the computer, because computers and printing is the sole concern of the publisher and not of any for the author, who composes in whatever way he feels like, but then manuscript proposals can also be turned down or special arrangements are made in the contract.
You seem to be overcomplicating the issue with overly-antiquated software (OK, so GRRM uses it, but why should you?) or too-modern web applications. You do know there are like 500 plain text editors out there, right? Any of them will do. If you want true distraction-free install Linux on a USB stick (it's really easy) and uninstall most of what it comes with, don't install network drivers at all, do whatever you need to do to set up that environment. Just... do it, this video makes it sound like a more difficult thing to do than it really should be.
I'm looking for something that I can use to take notes in class and writing and that is portable and for $200 or under what would you suggest? Preferably vintage but I don't mind if it's new
IMO, having just discovered it, I think that WordGrinder is what WordStar could have been, and it's being developed. If you're on Linux, it should fit in just well. You have to build it, but if you use Linux as your main driver, you should find it simple. It was a piece of cake on my OSX machine. cowlark.com/wordgrinder/
"super easy to learn" hmmm I disagree. I'm a Vim user, have been for over 15 years. I do not agree that a writer would find Vim easy to learn. Out of the box Vim doesn't contain the features WS4 does. It requires plugins, and even then it still can't match WS4. Do you expect a writer to know how to install and configure Vim?
@@JayJay-ki4mi Haha written like a true Vim user! That was a little bit of sarcasm on my part. I actually don't know how difficult it is to install Vim because I used Linux, and it's always installed on there. I definitely agree there is quite the learning curve, but it can be one of the most powerful tools if you take the time to learn it. Heck, and it's free!
@@Goodgis I'm thinking about building some plugins that could give Vim a WS4 like experience. If you're interested in working it with me I'll get it started on Github and drop a link.
A great distraction free writing tool is an actual DOS computer, but WordStar is about the worst of the word processors you'd want to use on it. All those control codes and key combinations, and the lack of space on screen with its on-screen clutter makes it just far too much like typing and editing in a postage stamp. It wasn't great then and isn't great now. Indeed, it originated with programmers wanting a tool for authoring software and then documentation. As shown in the video, it is also not file compatible with anything modern. WordPerfect 5.0 (no menus), or 5.1 (menus) or 6 are less obstructive and file compatible, or (my preference) LotusWorks 1.0, which has minimal complexity, but offers spell check and thesaurus if needed, has a neat and simple interface, and produces files which can be used in just about any text editor.
TunnelBear 3-Day Trial: eposvox.com/freebear
Here is what I did for writing distraction-free: Long story short, I bought a Raspberry Pi and installed Ubuntu for Raspberry Pi on it. Then after installing the software packages I wanted, I uninstalled its only internet browser, Firefox. I connected it to my mechanical keyboard and a large monitor. It’s now like a mechanical typewriter! The whole setup costs me $100 (excluding the keyboard and monitor because I already had them).
My new setup is still connected to the internet, but it does not have a browser. No web surfing anymore. As I still have internet access on Raspberry Pi, I can push my work to Github using the command line. I have created an email account specifically to send or receive articles or ebooks between my Raspberry Pi and my usual computer. I don’t use that email for anything else.
I'm a copywriter. I've tried everything including Vim and Emacs. Org-mode is good but Emacs requires coding knowledge to configure. I learned of WS4 recently and use it heavily for all my writing. Download vDos, drag and drop WS4 into the vDos folder (I personally create an apps directory) and away you go. I can't link to WS4 as it's still technically illegal to use unless you've paid for it. Also to add, you can use Pandoc to convert your .DOC files to any format you require, even Markdown. I convert them to PDF personally.
For anyone using Linux, imo the best distraction free environment for writing in a similar fashion:
- ctrl+alt+f1 (or from f1 up to f6 to open a new tty - which you can have multiple running at the same time, btw)
- log in to your user
- nano .txt
And the end result is a plain txt that you can later edit under any other program you want to use via copy/paste under the GUI environment (via ctrl+alt+f7), even while still modifying it in another tty.
As always great topic to discuss about!
Thanks!
And yeah, I think logging only into a terminal on my laptop will be the way to go (potential expansion video?). Just running terminal in OS is not any better.
Yeah, knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
Well, you got a fair point there, but consider I never said you should log in the GUI first ;)
Looking forward for the next video!
In linux you could use jstar, the wordstar-like interface for JOE.
Oooh, will look into it!
pajodato I've never used WordStar, but seems that I can make some simple formatting in it like put the text in italic, centre paragraphs, etc.
Does JOE do it? If the answer is no, is there any FOSS software really similar to WordStar (I mean, a program in console where I have some power of text formatting)?
@@HMatheusSLima Is it about text formatting or writing? Both are quite different. Larry Tesler's crusade against the modeless interface comes to mind.
FocusWriter es the GOAT Right now. And Free???? It's a damn shame MacOs is no longer supported. I sent a mail to the creator of FocusWriter and he told me his Mac was broken or something, so he can no longer compile the program there. 😩
So wait...
If you can't do anything with the fonts on WordStar, couldn't you just use Nano and Terminal?
Could, but then there'd be no retro vibe to dig into.
Okay then. You do you :)
Also knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
BUT if I JUST login via terminal (no X/Unity) to my laptop, that could work
EposVox you could run cool-retro-term in fullscreen for a retro vibe!
This is not true You can bold italic underline ... You have meny dot ( .pa ) www.sfwriter.com/vdos-old.htm
Midnight Commander (BSD/Unix/Linux) and use the build in Editor $>mcedit.
You can customize colors for FG and BG and have some nice functions like: search and replace or even spell check.
For me the best way to write long plain text.
The only missing feature is an autosave-timer. But its open-source, so can be implemented.
Just run shell:
apt-get update
apt-get install mc
mcedit
WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Could give that a try. It's what I've been taught to use in high school way back in the day. That and Microsoft Word for DOS as well.
Consider the word processor 'Q10'. Very small software but has an absolutely fantastic user experience.
I use Q10 as well and it is perfect for distraction free writing in my opinion.
Cool! Finally to see someone from 20xx to actually appreciate WordStar. I have WordStar 6.0 still on my 2021 Dell PC running thru DoxBox. I bought this way back in the late 80s and still keep it since then. Thanks for sharing. Wish you the best. God bless.
On the subject of distraction-free writing, Wordstar had Help Levels which provides on-screen assistance as you are using the program. It looks like you are using Help Level 3. At that Help Level the on-screen lists of commands are always visible (which takes up a large portion of the screen).
At Help Level 2, which was what I used, most of the time the list of commands are not visible which frees up most of the screen. However, if you hit a command like Control-P and wait a moment the sublist of commands will appear. If you hit the commands quickly (such as Control-P B to insert a Bold Mark) the sublist of commands won't appear. Also, the sublist will disappear once you complete the command.
As you gain experience with Wordstar, you can raise the Help Level when you find you need less and less help. I got good enough with Wordstar that I would think of something and my fingers would automatically hit the keys.
A final thing to mention about Wordstar is that it was designed for touch typists. Users could leave their fingers on the Home Row, rather than having to reach for a Function Key like Wordperfect.
Another distraction-free program to mention is Professional Write. It was designed to be simple to use (most of functions were accessed via Function Keys or Command and a letter) and screen was basically designed to simulate a sheet of paper (blank lines at the top and bottom of each page and blank spaces on the right and left). Other than some information at the top and bottom, the rest of the screen was dedicated to your writing.
Microsoft Word + Focus Mode = all a writer requires.
Although I purchased it for the spell checking, I actually ended up using the Grammarly editor for most of my writing... No text formatting possible whatsoever but the font is very easy on the eye (a thing I am very picky about). All that's left on the UI are content related options (spell checking, plagiarism check, etc.) and they are unobtrusively placed to the side and can be disabled any time with a single click. You might wanna give that a try and it's certainly much easier to handle than having to work in a DOS environment (compatibility, etc.).
Thanks for the recommendation!
Me: I'm going to be productive and not use my phone!
**Phone notification**
*_*Stay on the phone for hours and forgets what I was originally doing*_*
Basically xD
Why not just user a text editor? That is the most distraction free experience you can get. You don't have to worry about formatting or spelling either.
Or, you can get one of them old IBM Thinkpads (like t60/x60/t61/x61/x200 etc...), Install GNU/Linux (Gentoo, Slackware, Debian, Parabola, gNewSense or other) or BSD variant (OpenBSD FTW) on it.
Do not install X environment (GUI is for the weak) and use Vim (or if you reaaaaly want to, Emacs) to work on your LaTeX document in a Tmux session on a remote server in, say Russia, via encrypted SSH connection running through multiple i2p/Tor relays.
I've always wanted one of those, too................
I use Wordstar 4.0 to write. Just use DOSBox, and then open the documents with Corel WordPerfect. WordPerfect converts them directly, and that way you don't have to do any annoying formatting to make the file actually look right.
Quick question, what do you do to your audio? It sounds very powerful and nice! It doesn't sound like you just recorded your audio and put it into the video. I'm really curious as to what you do to make it sound so good! :)
A little EQ and Compression
EposVox thanks!
Alphasmart Neo 2?
I use Wordgrinder, which runs in a terminal and has that whole retro vibe going on. "But it's ugly and basic and so boring!" Yes, it is, which is why I also run Cool Retro Term to sex up my terminal. You end up with a funky, highly configurable terminal (you can get it to look like an Apple IIE or a Commodore 64 among others) and a distraction-free word processor in Wordgrinder. Awesome combination.
cowlark.com/wordgrinder/index.html
github.com/Swordfish90/cool-retro-term
I'm running Antergos, and both of these applications are available via the community repositories, but the links above should sort you out if you're interested.
I''m actually considering getting an IBM T60 or T61, installing a lightweight Linux distro on it, and typing everything through LaTeX for my writing.
Part of the power and beauty of WordStar back in the day was its ability to insert printer break codes, so you could send printer commands directly to the printer from within WordStar. This meant that if your printer supported multiple fonts or proportional fonts, or other weird features, WordStar supported them, so long as you could figure out the codes. Yeah, I was geek enough to figure them out. I could look at a WordStar screen, and "see" how it'd appear when printed out (like the Matrix) ;-)
You can use Quilter (elementary OS app that runs great on any ubuntu based distro)
As far as converting wordstar files to usable text, there are numerous conversion programs available on the web, which make this task very easy.
You also said FocusWriter is buggy on Linux; I have used it extensively and have not found any issues at all.
Another Linux option is WordGrinder, which is small, fast, and even simpler than FocusWriter.
WriteMonkey is a great option. It has an awesome built in thesaurus as well.
Thanks man, I just downloaded it and I really like it.
If you're set on using DOS, but you're still stuck on the more modern keybindings for cut-copy-paste, etc, Word 5.5 is (or was at one time) free on Microsoft's website and produces files that can be opened in modern word processors like Word and LibreOffice.
For the broader context, have a look at Matthew Kirschenbaum's work (recordings on TH-cam, "Track Changes" book). In summary, computers were initially used for data processing, and analogous to it, "text processing" was promoted to industrially slice, automate and optimize office paperwork production (previously on typewriters by secretaries). It started with dedicated mechanical-electronical text processing machines that kept keystrokes in memory for correction instead of relying on Tipp-Ex (which often wasn't an option in professional letters that had to be "perfect" as a matter of prestige and image) or rewriting whole pages, and later with software on computers. With graphical user interfaces not yet available, more work went into designing text operations, a lot of which got abandoned later because of increased focus on typography, layout and desktop publishing (back to Gutenbergs manual hand-typesetting I guess).
George R. R. Martin likely developed his WordStar writing habit when it was a popular product in the market (among plenty of others, each offering a different set of features), and as it's not continued any more and learning the tool was an investment as well, we can easily see how one would want to stay with it forever and modern alternatives only appear to be downgrades.
If you ever check out i3wm, it has a binding, mod-x, that will fullscreen the selected window. It's very nice. Your tiling layout stays the same when you unfullscreen as well. In addition to distraction-free working, it's very handy for running games where you want and how you want. Put them in windowed mode and on whatever monitor or workspace, and then fullscreen them and forget they're even windowed.
why not boot into linux command line and use nano or some other command line editor?
It's an option, but I also wanted to explore the retro app as per the start of the video :P
EposVox i get that. id be interested in a followup on the viability of using CLE like nano etc if you are up for it.
Borland Sidekick was my favorite DOS text editor, but I think it was limited to the PC's RAM.
You could always use a CLI only version of Linux with a text editor like nano.
Indeed
I am still using command-line version of WordPerfect 8 for notes and all the university work. All I need my word processor to do is just writing the damn text and doing it without all the fancy stuff that makes my computer laggy. A text editor such as vim, nano or notepad would be also useful, but having an option to do bold or italic fonts is pretty cool when you write for studying.
I carry a 32-bit HP netbook with a Linux system on it, so a fancy editor would cause unnecessary lag. If I need to do a legal research or something like this, I can run WP in a tiny xterm window with web browser running next to it on a larger window - it's very useful on a small netbook screen, since Word or LO Write would be obscured by the toolbar itself in such setting.
Not to mention the distraction-free thing. I have an old Pentium MMX laptop that is not connected to the Internet (nor has any means to do so, other than an RJ-11 modem, which is obviously obsolete) and an old version of Microsoft Works on it, alongside with TAG (an ancient Polish text processor).
Well, as an old DOS user, I can advice you that if you like the minimalistic experience of WordStar, you can still use cygwin (or Linux) and... the text-editor Joe, which is a terminal-based simplified text-editor with a lot of commands, syntax and caveats derived or inspired directly by WordStar itself (most of the ^K commands are the same, indeed). Moreover, it saves in plain text format (you might have some troubles with text attributes, in this case, but I guess you're mostly trying to find something as easy as open->write some text->save->close (anything else will follow later).
As a general rule, if you consider the "Text-based" interface a valid alternative to be productive, a lot of Open Source projects can help on the purpose of let you write without distractions, starting from VIM (which has kind of a steep line to learn how to use it, because it works under two statuses: command mode and editing mode), passing through things like Joe, Nano, mcedit and so on, up to the project EMACS, which I'm not sure if we should consider it a text-editor, or more like an entire operating system hidden inside an editor interface 🤔😱
Apart from that, I have to admit I've tried FocusWriter but, after a lot of time, I'm still a friend of Joe for everyday writing routines, plus Notepad++ for text revisions on job (plus LibreOffice to impaginate).
Ok, and Microsoft VSCode when programming, but while programming you definitely appreciate an editor with syntax hilight and that helps you in debugging.
Anyway didn't knew Martin was using WS4 🤯
Cool video on retro-tech... If you're really searching for true, distraction-free writing and want to embark on a couple nerdy tech projects, I have a couple ideas.
Using modern technology and a "thin client", you could provision a login and password that only allows access to your word processing application of choice. You'd have all the benefits of a Microsoft Word and save the files on your server, but basically if you imagine the most strict network environment at an office where a user is only allowed one application and maybe access to a printer/PDF writer and you've got the idea.
Another idea that might be even more fun and provide you with more retro-tech review opportunities would be to get yourself a Commodore 128 and the GEOS (Graphic Environment Operating System)... Think of how Windows used to sit on top of DOS as opposed to how it functions now and GEOS was actually one of the first GUI based operating systems that people rarely give credit to.
I could go for a Commodore 128 :D
That's probably because "GUI based operating system" is a somewhat strange concept I guess. Rarely credited as well are Ivan Sutherland with Sketchpad and Douglas Engelbart with NLS. People rather like to hear a (Xerox)/Apple/Microsoft story.
Wordstar can edit plain text as well as it's native format. It's native format is not ASCII, it is ASCII + formatting. ASCII is a 7 bit character set, Wordstar uses the unused 8th bit for it's formatting commands. Importing as US-ASCII sort of works because it strips the high bit. There are tools and filters to convert it, and a Postscript driver. I would probably say the best way to retain it's formatting abilities is to print-to-file using the postscript driver, then there are tonnes of modern tools you can use with it.
FreeDos fullscreens with altGr+f.
However, if you only care about the productivity, you could use VIM, Emacs and simply use a fullscreen xterm, or better, not start the X server at all and do everything from the TTY. This is what I do to code and do my emails.
If someone wants to invest the time, the better option to write professional looking documents (and faster after you learn howto) is using LaTex
I surprised no one has suggested wordgrinder or atleast from what I could see. You very well could run it in a linux environment with no x server implemented and it has plenty of nice features aswell as being able to import and export to libreoffice.
I'll check wordgrinder out :)
I use focus writer with a theme that makes it looks like Apple II. I use the Print Char 21 font that looks like an Apple II font.
I would either remove X from autorun on the laptop or dual boot a tiny system without X and then run Wordgrinder or Nano. No distractions and no file conversion issues.
Time to bust out the 'ol Michelangelo Diskettes! lol
haha
(stares in LaTeX).
...Kidding, I mostly use that for math documents and other specific academic cases. But I am legitimately curious if any writers make use of TeX-derived tools in that way.
What about installing Linux/BSD without X and using Emacs or vi? You can write it with LaTeX/pdftex to format it. It should be possible to set up a printer as well, but that might be trickier depending on how well it is supported.
I forgot to mention you could install it on a USB stick. There are still commands to access the network. You can use git to keep a history of changes and to back it up elsewhere. Wget and Lynx provide basic internet access
2:12 There are many use cases for DOS to this day, in embedded systems, some specialized servers, recovery, whatever small/specialized little computerized electronical device you have. But then, FreeDOS might be more tailored towards an actual daily human user.
3:26 and 3:42 What are the document conversion issues? Maybe there can be done something about it. FreeDOS is libre-freely licensed, LibreOffice as well and plenty of plain text editors.
3:55 Hey, if it were XML from the beginning, everything would be perfect!
5:03 Distraction-freeness isn't the only thing we could rediscover from earlier times, in which text was handled differently and in more advanced ways simply because there was zero concern about graphical user interfaces, typography, layout or print during the writing process.
Why DOS when you can use vim?
DOS is an operating system. Vim is a text editor. You might want to rephrase your question.
WordStar came with a document conversion package called Star Exchange, and this can be used to convert documents from WordStar format to .rtf format (which Word can open as a modern document);
www.wordstar.org/index.php/11-wordstar-file-conversion
I have a copy of WordStar 7.0C (the next to last version WordStar produced) but unfortunately it's on floppy disk and my computer no longer has a floppy drive. I still miss it sometimes; all the keys you use most often are near the centre of the keyboard.
RTF can be way worse than some form of ASCII, but there could be a decent-enough RTF converter maybe. I guess an USB external floppy drive is a good thing to have in the household in any case ;-)
I don’t know why you wouldn’t just use Vim. Even if you want to run it on DOS, you can get Vim on DOS too. Though, it shines best on Linux/BSD.
You can also use HABit Wordstar Converter to convert the WordStar documents to just text documents, and open the text document with whatever application you want to.
www.softpedia.com/get/Office-tools/Other-Office-Tools/HABit-Wordstar-Converter.shtml
LaTeX is also great and modern.
Why not just SSH into Ubuntu machine and then use nano to write your scripts?
It's simple and straightforward.
Unless I outright just boot into a TTS only instance in the first place, I still have the UI to use and thus not focus :P
EposVox no You can have your machine running headless and SSH into it(You have to tunnel the x display if you want GUI, you have plane old terminal to execute commands. I hope you get what am trying to say😅
Steven Hum of thedarnedestthing.com uses Vim on linux with a manual window manager, with his own configuration.
He runs his website with vimroom, which is a plugin for Vim.
A very small ergonomic keyboard, chimera ergo 42 (42 keys) with an incredible key config and his own BEAKL letter layout.
what about the VIM?
Try NANO and or Vim. Both are terminal based and you won't need a VM. Heck I think Nano is per-installed on OS X as well as every Linux distro.
I've got an old Toshiba NB505 netbook running Debian with a decent keyboard that I use for writing and coding only. It's basically useless for web surfing due to the 10 year old Atom processor
If formatting is irrelevant would vi or nano work?
This is late, but...
I notice in the comments that you carefully avoid discussions of vi or Vim. Still, there are text editors that emulate WordStar, such as Joe and Jupp (a fork of Joe). One setup no one has mentioned is to use a text editor (any text editor) and Pandoc. Pandoc is a command-line program that takes plain text files and converts them to a variety of formats, including OpenDocument. It can accept an OpenDocument file as a template. This means that you can set up a document in LibreOffice that contains the page and text styles you need for submitting a document, save it as an OpenDocument file, and use it as the template that Pandoc uses for formatting your text. Then write in your text editor and forget about formatting altogether.
The advantages that an editor like Vim or Neovim has over other editors is that its visual display is totally absent any menus (it can even be configured to have no status line) and it's commands are all touch-typed just like the text you type while composing your documents. Its commands are a mini-language of nouns and verbs that let you compose very specific commands tailored to the text you are editing. Your eyes never leave the screen because you are touch typing everything and don't need to search for the control or alt keys or contort your fingers to type a multi-key command. This translates to unbroken attention to the text. These programs are meant for programmers who often use an edit-compile-debug-repeat work cycle and use editors such as Vim because they can be configured to automatically run a compiler and a debugger when saving their work. This feature can be leveraged to invoke Pandoc on your files automatically. Terminal emulators such as Konsole in KDE Plasma can be made full-screen with the F11 key in that environment. Imagine a full-screen session where you are touch-typing both text and editor commands and where you don't need to do anything at all to generate formatted documents. That's Vim, Pandoc, and Konsole.
This is cool that people are still finding use for old tech in current times.
Though, not to be too critical, but couldn't you just full screen microsoft/libre office, or is knowing that youtbe videos are an al tab away still sort of distracting? > > ... I won't deny I've done it.
Yeah, knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
I use vim for all my writing. I can't imagine this being better. Emacs is probably good as well, especially if you wanted to use LaTeX in your document.
I use Vim for programming all the time. I used to write in it, but since trying WS4 I really like it. Org-mode is a good alternative but as a Vim fanboy I'm not super keen on emacs in general.
DOS isn't as hard to use as people make it out to be. The commands are straight forward, not at all complicated to learn. You can even make a cheat sheet that'll get you through most of your day to day needs.
I agree that DOS is not hard to learn. The way I did was have my Manual handy and when I needed to find something go to the Manual. As time passed I needed to go to the Manual less and less as I remembered what I had learned.
To run on Windows or a Windows VM:
www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
The document printing problem is solved.
(On MAC, you could use Boxer boxerapp.com)
Isn't plain ASCII opened with good ol' Notepad?
Real chads use nano
Ewwww
Micro is pretty cool, I’ve found that recently
You might want to check out wordgrinder. cowlark.com/wordgrinder/
Minimal, distraction free, more modern. It can export to plain text, word doc, libreoffice doc, rtf, html, etc.
I hae quite a few old machines, and I ended up here cause that is exactly what I intended to do... I am finding it very hard to concentrate and keep disciplined with ready access to internet.... I was really aiming for DOs-based word perfect, ... word star, and famous program, I should also consider it. but for this to work like intended, you wuold want it on a seperate machine, to go to another physical space where you are alone with that tool. basically turning a computer a digital typewriter.
Why don't you just use Dos box?
Causes problems on my computer, and isn't truly distraction free. It's still running within a distraction-filled OS.
Yeah, knowing I can just back out to my main OS means that I will. Which is why it was a problem that the VM wasn't full-screening and why I wouldn't just fullscreen a terminal or something if nothing else. The ability to find distractions means I will. "I'll just check this for a sec" means focus is broken and will continue to repeatedly be broken.
EposVox I see ok cool makes sense
What if the reason we don't have Winds is because he accidentally deleted the whole book in 2017 and has been unable to write since.
wordgrinder my man wordgrinder
Try TextPad
Focuswriter is probably the best distraction free writing software I know.
But if you want to use DOS and WordStar, don't use a virtual machine. That's just more hassle than is needed. Get a somewhat old laptop for cheap, install FreeDOS and WordStar on bare metal.
Except keyboard is very important to the typing experience
@@EposVox That's also why you want a laptop from the early to mid 2000s. I know the ThinkPad-Typing-Experience™ is somewhat cliche by now, so I'll just say that HP and Dell had some fantastic keyboards too during that era.
The real problem with these machines is that you're going to be stuck with a CCFL backlit display.
I'm betting George chugs these books out on a dot matrix printer, and ships that off to the publisher.
Haha eeesh
Technical sophistication on the side of the editor/publisher can't be always assumed, and then, depending on circumstances, one side may force its habits onto the other. It can be a "service" a publisher provides for an author to type his handwritten manuscript into the computer, because computers and printing is the sole concern of the publisher and not of any for the author, who composes in whatever way he feels like, but then manuscript proposals can also be turned down or special arrangements are made in the contract.
I dislike the fact you can’t see italic or bold text in the program itself
WordPerfect 5.0 is better imo
You seem to be overcomplicating the issue with overly-antiquated software (OK, so GRRM uses it, but why should you?) or too-modern web applications. You do know there are like 500 plain text editors out there, right? Any of them will do. If you want true distraction-free install Linux on a USB stick (it's really easy) and uninstall most of what it comes with, don't install network drivers at all, do whatever you need to do to set up that environment. Just... do it, this video makes it sound like a more difficult thing to do than it really should be.
It's a fun dive into this stuff, you're taking it a little too seriously.
I'm looking for something that I can use to take notes in class and writing and that is portable and for $200 or under what would you suggest? Preferably vintage but I don't mind if it's new
WORDGRINDER > all
try Word grinder
LaTeX is good. :-)
Bro, you could just use linux tty session and emacs.
IMO, having just discovered it, I think that WordGrinder is what WordStar could have been, and it's being developed. If you're on Linux, it should fit in just well. You have to build it, but if you use Linux as your main driver, you should find it simple. It was a piece of cake on my OSX machine.
cowlark.com/wordgrinder/
Linux has some stuff out there that can just be boot from the USB.
Ehh...I use one called Q10
Wordgrinder.
Just use Vim, it's super easy to learn and incredibly fast.
"super easy to learn" hmmm I disagree. I'm a Vim user, have been for over 15 years. I do not agree that a writer would find Vim easy to learn. Out of the box Vim doesn't contain the features WS4 does. It requires plugins, and even then it still can't match WS4. Do you expect a writer to know how to install and configure Vim?
@@JayJay-ki4mi Haha written like a true Vim user! That was a little bit of sarcasm on my part. I actually don't know how difficult it is to install Vim because I used Linux, and it's always installed on there. I definitely agree there is quite the learning curve, but it can be one of the most powerful tools if you take the time to learn it. Heck, and it's free!
@@Goodgis I'm thinking about building some plugins that could give Vim a WS4 like experience. If you're interested in working it with me I'll get it started on Github and drop a link.
@@JayJay-ki4mi What programming language?
@@Goodgis Lua.
A great distraction free writing tool is an actual DOS computer, but WordStar is about the worst of the word processors you'd want to use on it. All those control codes and key combinations, and the lack of space on screen with its on-screen clutter makes it just far too much like typing and editing in a postage stamp. It wasn't great then and isn't great now. Indeed, it originated with programmers wanting a tool for authoring software and then documentation. As shown in the video, it is also not file compatible with anything modern. WordPerfect 5.0 (no menus), or 5.1 (menus) or 6 are less obstructive and file compatible, or (my preference) LotusWorks 1.0, which has minimal complexity, but offers spell check and thesaurus if needed, has a neat and simple interface, and produces files which can be used in just about any text editor.
Someone is catching the i3 flew.
I still use pen and paper
Writing is much more painful on my hands than typing
@@EposVox Because you're not used to writing :p Pen and paper is the ultimate distraction free writing.
Vim for the win
neovim
Just break the WiFi adapter on the laptop.
Then GRRM found out how great Cons are when you've got $$$ and it's over anyways!
use Vim