CFOG's PIP, April 1986, Volume 4 No. 6, Whole No. 42, page 2

A WordStar Tip: Put the File on B:?

by Benjamin H. Cohen

[This article is based on one written by Bill Mead and appearing in Cita Scans, published by a Vancouver, B.C. computer dealer. Mead says he got the information from the March Orange Bytes -- bhc]

Try this: Put a formatted, blank disk in drive B:. Put your WordStar disk in drive A:. From the CP/M A> prompt, enter WordStar <filename.ext> b:<cr>. Note the trailing "b:" on the command line.

When you add this command tail, you are telling WordStar to put the finished file on drive B:. The ".bak" file, however, will be on drive A:!

You can do the same from the no-edit menu. Log onto drive B: When WordStar asks for a filename, enter filename.ext a:<cr>. The file will be created on drive A:, with only the backup on drive B:.

Now, what I really want to do is to edit the file on drive B: and put the .bak file on drive A: Let's try this: Log onto drive A:, hit the "d", and enter newfile.ext<cr> b:. Create the file and save it, a couple of times at least. There it is, on drive B:, with the bak file on A:. Wonder of wonders.

It's when you want to edit an existing file that this technique seems to get a bit cloudy. For instance, I'm now logged onto drive A:, the file I'm editing is on drive A:. So after the "d", I entered oldfile.ext b:<cr>. Now there was no ".bak" file on either drive to start with. Let's hit ^KS and see what happens. I've got the file directory on, and oldfile.ext is right there before my eyes. ^KS^QP, and before my very eyes, there's no more oldfile.ext, but there is an oldfile.bak on drive A:! When I log onto drive B:, I find oldfile.ext has been moved over there!

Let's try this variant. Log onto drive B:. The file and a ".bak" file are on drive A: After the "d", enter a:oldfile.ext b:. Now, let's hit ^KS^QP and see what happens. Well, for starters, oldfile.ext is now on B:. Let's try it again. Hmmm! Now, oldfile.bak is on drive B:. One more time, ^KD. Well, now oldfile.ext is gone from drive A:, and the file and the ".bak" file are on drive B:.