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1979-12-31
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73 lines
CHANGING YOUR WORDSTAR BACKSPACE AND DELETE KEYS
by Read Gilgen
Those of you who rushed out to buy WordStar because it was the only thing
or (you were told) the best thing on the market, soon discovered that the
converted CP/M package left a lot to be desired. In particular, the
assignment of special keys appeared to be made by someone who had begun the
happy hour at 8 A.M.
I could never figure out why the backspace key (upper row) was a non-
destructive backspace when that function already existed on the left cursor
key. Then, why was the delete key functionally equivalent to the normal PC
use of the backspace key (destructive left) rather than like the normal PC
delete function which corresponds to WordStar's Ctrl-G.
Bernie Cohen and I began fiddling with the bytes in the WS.COM program,
following patches suggested in PC-WORLD and guessing on our own, until we
had the delete key assigned to the Ctrl-G function. But it wasn't until
Dean Bridge gave us the locations for all three keys that we were able to
make WordStar keys work like regular PC keys.
For your edification (and perhaps use), I have reproduced below the DEBUG
procedure for making these lovely key changes that result in a destructive
backspace key, a normal non-destructive left cursor key, and a normally
deleting delete key. One caution: make a backup copy of your WS.COM file
before making any changes. Also, I can't guarantee that this procedure
will work with your version of WordStar (mine was 3.24), although it pro-
bably will.
1. First, place you DOS disk in drive A: and your WS.COM file in drive B:
2. Follow these procedures:
<<You see: You type:>>
A> debug b:ws.com <CR>
- E 6E6 <CR>
090B:06E6 08. 7F <CR>
- E 71C <CR>
090B:071C 7F. 07 <CR>
3. The next steps are a bit tricky, because you are switching byte infor-
mation at two locations. You first display the values at one location,
then edit the other location, and finally edit the first location using the
values displayed upon editing the second location.
<<You see: You type:>>
- D 49B <CR>
090B:049B E1 7C 04 00 D5
(Plus much more. You want the
first two bytes: E1 and 7C)
- E 52B <CR>
090B:052B 82. E1 <CR> (The first byte, above)
- E 52C <CR>
090B:052C 82. 7C <CR> (The second byte, above)
<<You see: You type:>>
- E 49B <CR>
090B:049B E1. 82 <CR> (The byte shown at 052B)
- E 49C <CR>
090B:049C 7C. 82 <CR> (The byte shown at 052C)
- W <CR>
Writing 5180 bytes
- Q <CR>
A>
4. The process is now complete. Boot WordStar and try it out. If you
have followed the procedures correctly, and used the bytes that appear on
your disk (not necessarily the same as those above), then it all ought to
work correctly.