In reply to a post by TinyMongomery:

So those programs wouldn't do all you want after all. (Number one requirement is that the program runs on your OS.)

I suspect you would also want to use devices (e.g. printers) not supported by WordStar (unless you have an LX200).

What was a LX200? I realise it was a printer, but was it dot Martix or something like a Daisy wheel?

I used to have a star LC20 in years gone by for the Amiga, I still can't believe we used to use those noisy slow things. Saying that I was printing a letter last night 11 pages in high quality on my Canon bubble jet and I was moaning about how long it was taking. It zooms along at normal quality, but oh so slow at high. Looking at a cheap laser, but It must do duplex, not bothered about wireless

A mate of mine used to use a golf ball printer, big clunky noisy thing, to get different fonts the golf ball had to be changed. He still have it no doubt would still work if he had the ribbons and connected it up to his old Apple Lisa.

My wife is a secretary/PA and gets annoyed when her employer updates/upgrades any word processing software. It takes her a while to get used to new layouts/ribbons and doesn't make her any faster overall once learned. Her typing speed is just the same.

No one on these forums has given a definitive answer to being more productive with the advent of a newer OS or programme.

If one person uses all the new toys in the newest Word programme I would be surprised. Newer doesn't necessarily make things better.

I suspect that it is something I made up (I was probably thinking of the Epson MX-80), but the concept was of a generic dot-matrix or daisy-wheel printer.

The "what have the Romans (Windows) ever done for us" argument forgets the greatest improvement that Windows made, which was to move the handling of devices from the individual programs to the operating system. WordStar (at least the DOS version, let alone the CP/M one) would not support modern printers whereas any Windows word processor will.

In reply to a post by zyborg47:

In reply to a post by camieabz:

Mine aren't. And the ubit bar that appear there only appears when using the menu tab.

http://www.camieabz.co.uk/files/menu.png

So it don't replace the ribbon then, it just add another option to it.

Yes, and it's the best of both worlds. Add your regular icons to the ribbon, but have the menu for everything else. Or it can help with transition to ribbon, if you like.