George R. R. Martin Still Uses A DOS Word Processor | CONAN on TBS

What people said

reaperducer · 2023-04 · Reference

Do you really thing you would put aside your regular laptop to use an old terminal for writing? Yes. I already do. It provides focus and a chance for me to concentrate on my writing, rather than be distracted not only by a thousand notifications and temptations (Oh, let me just switch over and see if there's anything new on HN...), but also the mild background anxiety that comes from knowing interruption is just a push notification, or a Command-Tab away. I have very little faith that anyone would regularly fire up an old power hungry machine to do one single task Then you have very little faith in George R.R. Martin, who isn't shy about writing on a Kaypro II. [VIDEO]

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chongli · 2021-12 · Reference

Software needs to be maintained to be useful Maybe that’s the problem we need to be addressing. More and more these days I find myself frustrated using modern software when old unmaintained software had already solved the problem. We consider it a novelty when a writer like George RR Martin still uses WordStar on an old DOS machine [1]. Maybe it shouldn’t be a novelty. Maybe it should be the normal thing to do. It’s utterly at odds with a consumer culture though. People don’t seem to want well-made things that last a lifetime. They want shiny disposable crap. [1] [VIDEO]

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eddieh · 2021-05 · Reference

Many authors use WordStar. Here is George R. R. Martin taking about WordStar [VIDEO] I think, and I believe it has been suggested to Robert J. Sawyer, that Emacs keys are very similar to WordStar in the use of cords (or prefixed keystrokes). WordStar has ^Q as a prefix whereas Emacs has ^x, ^c, and ^h, etc. [edit] Add bit about Emacs

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