CFOG's PIP, November 1989, Volume 8 No. 4, Whole No. 72, page 40

WordStar 6 in January!

by Benjamin H. Cohen

No, WordStar International hasn't announced a new version of WordStar yet, but the tea leaves are beginning to fall in place. First there was the offer in the mail and now it's in WordStar News: your WS 5 free support ended on October 31 [6 months after the release of WS 5.5], so now you can upgrade to WS 5.5 for only $69.95 plus $2.50 shipping. Offer good through December 31, 1989, only. Tea leaves say: end of year is 8 months since last upgrade, last upgrade was not a full integer number, so it's time to move to verstion 6.

It's only logical. There are two ways that software houses make money: (1) sell to new users and (2) upgrade old users. While there may be more potential new users, there are still lots of actual users and while the 'list' price of WS 5.5 may be $495 the street price is around $220 and WordStar doesn't get all of that since the retailers have to make something. So an upgrade isn't all that much worse in revenue production than a new user.

When the potential of version 5.5 to tempt users to upgrade has run its course you need to come out with a version 6. There's another reason, too: the competition is and will be coming out with new versions with tempting new features. WordStar learned about this one the hard way: the length of time between WS 3.3 and WS 4 was so long that by the time WS showed up there were a number of upstart companies that had stolen the market from WordStar. Today WS is an also-ran (far behind Word Perfect and MicroSoft Word) in the word processing field, attracting few new users and losing old users all the time.

I won't get into the argument over whether WS is better or as good as WP or Word: I'm not familiar enough with WS 5 or 5.5 or WP or Word to be able to make an intelligent comparison. As a CP/M user I don't have to worry too much about it!

CFOG's PIP, November 1989, Volume 8 No. 4, Whole No. 72, page 40

WS4 (CP/M) Mystery

by Benjamin H. Cohen

On my credenza I have two computers, a Kaypro 1 and an Osborne Executive (with Nuevo 2x2 ESU). WordStar 4 is on both of them. The WSPRINT:OVR file on each is identical, and comes from the 'new' WSPRINT.OVR file released by WordStar to correct the bugs in the original. One of those bugs was that with many printers WS4 would not send a formfeed to the printer after the last page. Try that one when you want multiple copies or send one file after another.

Here's my problem: when I print a file with the Kaypro everything is fine. When I print the same file using the same printer overlay on my Osborne Executive, there's no form feed at the end of the file.

To check this out I have even gone so far as to use WSCHANGE to modify the copy of WS.COM on the Kaypro 1 and then put it on the Executive. The only changes are the terminal and the active drives. It still doesn't work.