Best telnet terminal emulator for WordStar

[Flavio Villanustre]

I've been trying the WordStar disk on CP/M with telnet over WiFi. I'm using Ubuntu Linux and a standard xterm (but I tried Cool-retro-term too). The drawing of items on the screen seem to be a bit messed up. During the startup, WordStar will first display a copyright message and then provide a menu with the useful shortcuts for the start; that menu displays a bit garbled.

Are there any recommendations for a better terminal emulator when using CP/M programs like WordStar?

Thanks,

Flavio

[udo....@freenet.de]

fvilla...@gmail.com schrieb am Dienstag, 31. Dezember 2024 um 20:58:23 UTC+1:

I've been trying the WordStar disk on CP/M with telnet over WiFi. I'm using Ubuntu Linux and a standard xterm (but I tried Cool-retro-term too). The drawing of items on the screen seem to be a bit messed up. During the startup, WordStar will first display a copyright message and then provide a menu with the useful shortcuts for the start; that menu displays a bit garbled.

Are there any recommendations for a better terminal emulator when using CP/M programs like WordStar?

On Linux systems minicom has pretty much the best VT-100/ANSI terminal emulation.

Also possible that the WordStar you are using is a bit misconfigured, there are many

configured version out there not totally OK.

[Flavio Villanustre]

Hmm... that could be. This is the WordStar 3.0 disk included in Chris' Altair-duino kit. The default configuration is for ADDS Viewpoint Terminal, but I don't have one of those. There are a couple dozen options in the install, but I don't see any standard vt100 or ANSI terminal ones. Is there an option that is more compatible with a normal telnet from a linux xterm?

Thanks,

Flavio

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[John Galt]

Wordstar 3 is the version bundled with Chris's kit. it does not have very good VT-100 support. you can play around with the configuration but you will end up with 'generic terminal support' a very limited terminal, this is actually the default provided as is. 

You could emulate various better terminals under telnet but it won't emulate anything that Wordstar 3 could be configured for. it expects a kaypro or ADM terminal to have better escape code functions.

if you used a FABGL Ansi terminal then there are various setting you could play around with in Wordstar 3 that would actually give a limited color set. it would have kaypro or ADM or Ansi support plus more then one color.

Wordstar 4 has full VT-100 support, but it was never hacked as much as wordstar 3 was, so you can get much better VT-100 support in wordstar 3 but there is no Ansi Color hack like there is for Wordstar 3.

Wordstar 4 requires slightly more ram over wordstar 3 and it can run a touch slower then 3. most people stick with wordstar 3 as its slightly faster and run OK with limited escape code support.

i use wordstar 4 as the menus are easier to read when full VT-100 support is enabled, dim and bright works. 

Wordstar 4 also supports many more printers which gives me proper okidata support where wordstar 3 does not.

if you try wordstar 4 just make sure you bump your ram to 64kb and then adjust your CP/M so it can use maximum ram around 56KB.

wordstar 4 will not work under MP/M since it requires more TPA then Wordstar 3. another reason wordstar 3 is preferred.

 

[Flavio Villanustre]

John, thanks! I could try a terminal using fabgl on a TTY-LilyGO device. I'll explore it, as you suggested.

Now, regarding WS 4, do you know if there is a drive image out there that I could try?

Thanks,

Flavio

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[John Galt]

for a clean version of WS4

you can go here

https://winworldpc.com/product/wordstar/40

download 

WordStar 4.0 for CPM-80 (files) (alt)

that will give you a zipped version of all the disks in the WS4 set.

D1, D2 etc.

D1 is Disk 1 in the set and includes Wordstar and support files.

D2 Disk 2 contains the configuration program which will alter WS.com with your hardware requirements.

you can setup your display, printer, and lots of other things.

D5 contains additional Word star features like spell check, anagram, i think there is a thesaurus.
X1-X3 zips contains everything kind of put on 3 disks instead of 6.

but everything should fit on a 5mb harddrive image with room to spare. i recommend FredWs image allowing 1024 files as the default Cp/M can only handle 255 files.

https://github.com/ratboy666/hd1024

you can then make additional Blanks and propagate them as you wish.

also fred's R is a recommended tool 

https://github.com/ratboy666/r

basically space is limited and the file count is limited but you can get around this by putting applications into a giant Library file, then you can run many programs right out of the archive as it will decompress and load them into memory. 
there is also using the USER command as ported from MP/M to act like a directory so you can organize things a little.

that should be a start to make your head spin :-)

[John Galt]

the wordstar 4.0 manual

https://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/manuals/ws4.pdf

[John Galt]

there are of course other editors if you plan to write your code on the Altair. there is VEDIT, etc... but i come back to Wordstar,, i have WS3 as a quick load since it is smaller and faster if i need something quick or i use BISHOW to scroll a file up and down as needed, but if i need something a little more powerful then i use WS4.
what is great with a FABGL Ansi terminal is it maps keypresses directly for Wordstar,, this allows you to use your arrow keys to make editing even better.

you can also increase the number of rows to over 50, more then doubling your display screen from 24 rows. plus you get full VT-100 support.

When things get very complex you can always write code on a modern computer with a modern editor then transfer it to your Altair and compile it there.

[Richard Deane]

Have a look at the wordstar on Peter Schorn's altairz80 page (schorn.ch). All the apps are configured for vt100/xterm. Unfortunately i don't recollect which versions of wordstar he has.

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[udo....@freenet.de]

Here you find WS 3.0, 3.3 and 4.0 all perfectly configured for VT-100/ANSI:

https://www.icl1900.co.uk/unix4fun/z80pack/ftp/

The disk images for 3.0 and 3.3 are IBM SSSD standard format though, not the format

used by MITS and 4.0 is so large that it only fits on a z80pack HD. For using it on

some Altair you need to use cpmtools and altairtools to copy the files on such a disk.

[Flavio Villanustre]

Thank you very much! WordStar was the first true word processor that I ever used (on an XT PC, back in the day). I think I may still have the motor memory in my fingers for all the Ctrl-? functions that I used, but the manual is always a good refresh. Next step will be to get a printer to work (I can probably rig something together sending the output to an lpd process on a raspberry pi).

Flavio

On Wed, Jan 1, 2025 at 2:21 AM John Galt <furba...@gmail.com> wrote:

the word star 4 manual as well

chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://oldcomputers.dyndns.org/public/pub/manuals/ws4.pdf

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[Flavio Villanustre]

Thanks, Richard! I'll check it out.

Best wishes and happy new year!

Flavio

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[Flavio Villanustre]

Thanks, Udo! This helps a lot! I'll try them.

Best,

Flavio

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