Finally, to come back to the keyboard interface, I think WordStar is the least modal word processor I have ever used. On long-hand paper, writing and editing are one fluid task: there's no barrier to discourage you from switching between adding new material and modifying existing material. On a typed page, these tasks are quite distinct, especially with non-electronic typewriters. To change a word is a completely different spectrum of activities, and therefore a completely different mindset, from simply adding new words.
The thing is, Microsoft Word (for Dos and then Windows) was actually a big step for this also. The standard Windows/Macintosh arrow-key-and-selection-area interface was huge step up from previous word processing. The thing is that as author says, previous word processors like WordPerfect preserved faithfully and horribly the typed-page-and-whiteout "interface". I wrote a number of college papers in WordPerfect and I found it's "modalism" terrible (though I'm sure some is nostalgic, someone found advantages).
Moreover, the select-copy-paste system is based on a few simple tools that can be grasped without special training and synergize to produce just about any edit effect. Things weren't that easy before and I don't miss that.
One thing I'd mention is that graphic editing (photoshop/GIMP/etc) is still stuck in an interface taken from paper. And that when CorelDraw and Inkscape showed a better interface that also uses a few synergizing tools, other software failed to adopt it. But the pressures on graphics software seems to be different.
The thing is, Microsoft Word (for Dos and then Windows) was actually a big step for this also. The standard Windows/Macintosh arrow-key-and-selection-area interface was huge step up from previous word processing. The thing is that as author says, previous word processors like WordPerfect preserved faithfully and horribly the typed-page-and-whiteout "interface". I wrote a number of college papers in WordPerfect and I found it's "modalism" terrible (though I'm sure some is nostalgic, someone found advantages).
Moreover, the select-copy-paste system is based on a few simple tools that can be grasped without special training and synergize to produce just about any edit effect. Things weren't that easy before and I don't miss that.
One thing I'd mention is that graphic editing (photoshop/GIMP/etc) is still stuck in an interface taken from paper. And that when CorelDraw and Inkscape showed a better interface that also uses a few synergizing tools, other software failed to adopt it. But the pressures on graphics software seems to be different.