Opinion
The peak of word processing occurred in late 1989 with the release of WordPefect v5.1. It already was the world's most popular writing tool, because of free telephone tech support and programmers who reacted positively to writers' wishlists. With v5.1, it gained drop-down menus; until then, we memorized something like 40 function key combinations to carry out commands like boldface and save. I recall it took me nearly half a year to become comfortable using a mouse with the menus.
Here is what WordPerfect looked like after starting a new document:
By default, WordPerfect v5.1 kept its new menu bar turned off
It was so good that I typeset my first books with it, in addition to writing hundreds for articles for CADalyst magazine and other publications. I optimized my 1983 Victor 9000 desktop computer with a $600 512KB RAM drive to make spell checking instant. Other functions, however, like generating the table of contents took a half-hour as the dual-diskette drive computer ground through the text files making up my book chapters.
The look of the WordPerfect menu bar was typical for DOS programs of the early 1990s
(In those days, you didn't just try a bunch of different software programs to find the best, as most cost $495 -- about $1500 in today's inflated dollars -- and demo versions were very limited.)
Within a few years, however, disaster stuck WordPerfect.
The first was the trend to giving DOS-based programs graphical interfaces. When WordPerfect 6.0 came out in 1993 with a Windows-like interface for DOS, I remember the bitter disappointment I felt as the program groaned under the weight of the overloaded GUI baggage. I stopped using it, quickly, and returned to my beloved 5.1.
The second was the ascendancy of Word, made possible by Microsoft's monopoly position. To this day, Word does not serve writers well.
(I kept using WordPerfect 5.1 as long as I could, and then at some point switched to Atlantis, available from https://www.atlantiswordprocessor.com/en/.)
Nostalgia Strikes
One of the wonderful things about the Internet is that it allows me to go back in time. Thanks to eBay, I've recreated my stereo system and camera outfit from my university days of the late 1970s. The Marantz 2225 receiver (which I kept and still works to this day) was joined by the Hitachi D-850 cassette deck (at right) and Koss HC/1a headphones, after I spent years looking for them.
To recreate my camera setup, I located a Minolta XE-7 SLR on eBay (at left), the classic Vivitar 283 flash at a local thrift shop, and even bought the lens I couldn't afford back then: the also-classic Vivitar One 70-210mm zoom lens that "everybody" else had.
Setting up WordPefect 5.1 in 20024
Earlier this year I came across an effort to keep WordPerfect for DOS running on today's Windows operating systems. There even is a version of DOS specific to WordPerfect, called DOSWP. I was intrigued and dove in.
Here is how I got WordPerfect v5.1 working inside DOS on my Windows 10 laptop:
- Install vDosPlus from vdosplus.org
- Install WordPerfect from oldversion.com/search?query=wordperfect
- Install a printer driver from mendelson.org/wpdos/index.html#printer
Notes:
1. Later, I found that there is a version of DOS specific to running WordPerfect at mendelson.org/wpdos/dosboxwp-2020.html. I did not try it.
2. You can try WordPerfect 4.x, 5.x, and/or 6.x.
3. I never got a printer working.
Nevertheless, I got WordPerfect up and running, and then using an external floppy drive, loaded one of the book files that I had archived 30 years ago. Here is what it looks like:
Minimal formatting displayed by the WordPerfect text screen
The Joys and the Tears
Recreating my old stereo and camera systems bought me great joy, mainly because I gaze at them and make little attempt to use them. But with software, there is no gazing; there is only using or not using.
With DOS-based software, I can't go back. The fingers have forgotten the muscle memory needed to effortlessly punch the correct combinations of Alt, Shift, Ctrl, and function keys. Here is what, at one time, my fingers knew instinctively:
Function key definitions for WordPerfect v5.1
The need to set up WordPerfect-written printer drivers is a time-waster in our plug'n-play world. And then there is the killer disrupter: the need to switch back and forth to the print preview screen to see what my formatting looks like.
Here is what a page from one of my books looked like in WordPerfect's preview mode:
A page from my 1992 book, "The Illustrated AutoCAD 11 Quick Reference"
So, it was a fun experiment. But the key reason for using WordPerfect v5.1 (speed, speed, speed) is no longer an advantage with today's fast hardware that runs even speedier software, like Atlantis on Windows.
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