Continuing on with this exploration of ancient magnetic archives, this is the third 5.25" floppy disk from a stash discovered in a thrift store long ago. The first two disks revealed some not safe for work content but this one is a little more tame. It is labeled Word Star and that was in fact what was on the disk.
Loading up WordStar revealed the following:
So to be specific, this is WordStar Professional Release 4.
WordStar dominated word processing for a number of years and was the most popular word processor until about 1985 when it was overtaken by Word Perfect. However, a number of famous writers used WordStar and some still do. George R.R. Martin, writer of Game of Thrones still uses DOS based WordStar 4.0 to write his books.
Basic typing and editing are pretty straightforward but getting proficient with all of the control key shortcuts would take some time, even once you understand the logic behind them.
