WordStar: A Writer's Word Processor (1996)

Science fiction authors including George R.R. Martin, Arthur C. Clarke, and Anne Rice have long championed WordStar, a word processor released in 1978 that was designed around control-key commands for touch typists before keyboard standardization. Robert J. Sawyer's essay explains WordStar's superiority for creative writing, arguing that its logical interface and reliability made it preferable to later programs like Microsoft Word, despite decades of criticism from users of competing software.