  q(Reading WORDSTAR.2000, listing time = 7:15)
           [Not a favorable review, but it answers many questions.]

                      WORDSTAR 2000 AND WORDSTAR 2000 PLUS:
                          A PAIR OF JOKERS BACK-TO-BACK
                                  January 1985

                          MicroPro International Corp.
                                33 San Pablo Ave.
                            San Rafael, CA 94903-4178
                                  415/499-1200

        Computers:            IBM PC,  XT, AT and fully compatible micro-
                              computers.
        Operating Systems:    PC-DOS or MS-DOS 2.0, 2.1 or 3.0.
        Media:                At   least  two  floppy  disk  drives   are
                              required; hard disk is recommended.
        Required Peripherals: Color  or  monochrome  monitor  (monochrome
                              with  or without special graphics adapter);
                              printer and interface adapter.
        Other Requirements:   Minimum 256K RAM for DOS 2.x;  minimum 320K
                              RAM for DOS 3.0 and IBM PC AT.
        Optional Items:       Smartmodem compatible autodial modem to use
                              telecommunications feature of WordStar 2000
                              Plus;  additional memory;  additional  disk
                              drives; electronic disk.
        System used for test: 640K Compaq Portable Computer equipped with
                              two    double-sided   double-density   disk
                              drives,  electronic disk,  Bizcomp Intelli-
                              Modem-XT, and Epson MX-80 and Qume Sprint 5
                              printers.
        List Prices:          $495 for WordStar 2000;
                              $595 for WordStar 2000 Plus;
                              $250 for WordStar 2000 or $350 for WordStar
                              2000  Plus when upgrading from older  Word-
                              Star. (Mail order prices lower)

                            Reviewed by Ernest E. Mau

        By now,  just about everyone knows that MicroPro has released  an
        all-new  WordStar for the IBM PC family.  WordStar 2000 is desig-
        nated  a  "companion" product,  not a replacement for  the  older
        WordStar.
        The  announcement last October was a media "event," although  the
        fanfare preceded product deliveries by more than a month.  At the
        time,  WordStar 2000 sounded great. It appeared that MicroPro had
        accommodated their customers in providing efficient and effective
        enhancements that would make WordStar attractive when compared to
        newer and more elaborate competitors.

        Well,  the software finally arrived. After putting it through its
        paces,  it's hard to believe that something this inefficient  and
        inconvenient  would  be  released to a  supposedly  sophisticated
        market of business and professional users.

        WordStar  2000 arrives on seven diskettes (six without  the  Plus
        features of telecommunications,  indexing and mailing lists).  It
        installs  on nine diskettes (eight without Plus) or a hard  disk.
        Five  diskettes (four without Plus) are copyable.  Two use  Auto-
        Install  procedures  to  make working copies and  generate  extra
        diskettes needed to run the system.

        Two  diskettes may be reclaimed later by  erasing  tutorials.  An
        obscure  installation hint says that a "key disk" needed in Drive
        B whenever the program is started from floppies may be copied and
        used  to  hold  data files--costing 11K of  each  data  diskette.
        Floppy  management  can be a problem,  with  plenty  of  diskette
        swapping needed.

        One  DOS  modification  must  be  made  during  installation.   A
        CONFIG.SYS  file  is  created or modified to include  a  FILES=20
        statement needed to run the system.  The user must boot DOS using
        the FILES=20 statement.  Another hint advises that working  speed
        may  be  improved by a BUFFERS=20 statement,  which costs 10K  of
        RAM, works only with over 256K of installed RAM, gives less speed
        improvement than suggested, and could interfere with other appli-
        cation programs.

        Hard  disks  having the "key" file available can  start  WordStar
        2000  with a specified filename (and path) to jump right  into  a
        document.  Floppy users must boot the modified DOS diskette, swap
        in the program diskette,  start WordStar 2000 from Drive A with a
        key disk in Drive B,  swap Drive B floppies if the key file isn't
        on  a  data disk,  and manually log onto the data  drive.  Floppy
        users cannot start WordStar 2000 with a specified filename.

        WordStar  2000 is copy protected,  allowing up to three copies to
        be installed.  Should a disk be damaged, a copy can be "uninstal-
        led"  to reduce the counter and allow a fresh  installation.  For
        hard disks, the program must be uninstalled before backing up the
        disk; failure to uninstall will give an unusable copy of WordStar
        2000  without  decrementing the counter,  costing  the  user  one
        working copy.

        MicroPro  promised many enhancements,  but the promise is largely
        unfulfilled.  Some improvements are attractive.  Others aren't. A
        few are so restrictive they're almost useless.

        Paragraph  reforming  is automatic.  Paragraphs affected  by  any
        changes are adjusted without intervention.  That's great--no more
        need to use CONTROL-B to reform margins after editing.

        Hyphenation is completely automatic when switched on.  That's not
        so great. Hyphens aren't always correctly placed or where they're
        wanted.  Automatic hyphens cannot be removed or relocated  except
        by  designating words to be kept together without any hyphenation
        or  by  manually inserting a "discretionary  hyphen"  before  the
        automatic hyphen.


        "Format  sheets"  are  provided and can be created by  the  user.
        Every  new document must be assigned a format that  sets  margins
        and tabs,  assigns the printer font,  and so on.  Available fonts
        are  determined according to the installed printer,  but not  all
        possibilities may be supported.  For an MX-80 with Graftrax Plus,
        WordStar 2000 automatically supports normal,  compressed,  double
        width, superscript and subscript fonts, but not italics. Program-
        mers may use an "unformatted" sheet to create ASCII files without
        benefit  of  formatting capabilities.  To later change a  format,
        commands  must be embedded in the file or the file can be  copied
        onto a new format sheet.

        An "undo" command recovers from erroneous deletions. A "keystroke
        glossary" stores information such that a typed short form abbrev-
        iation automatically is replaced with a long form,  say a product
        name  or  return  address.   Proportional  spacing  printers  are
        supported as are color printers and sheet feeders.  Some columnar
        math and columnar sorting are provided. These things seem to work
        well.

        Windowing  permits simultaneous display and editing of  only  two
        documents. It's useful for cut-and-paste operations between docu-
        ments, but really doesn't gain much.

        Built-in  footnoting  automatically numbers footnotes but  prints
        them  only at the end of the document.  Users needing  bottom-of-
        page footnoting are out of luck.

        The spelling proofreader is CorrectStar.  It's supposed to run in
        256K  but  wouldn't  on my Compaq.  I had to divert  part  of  my
        electronic  disk to provide 320K of working RAM before I  stopped
        getting an "insufficient memory" message.  The error message also
        coincided  with the trashing of all data files on my  work  disk.
        Floppy users must exchange diskettes in Drive A,  but CorrectStar
        needs two files that it copies onto the data diskette in Drive B,
        gobbling  up  89K on any diskette with a file to be  proofed  and
        increasing chances of running out of disk space.

        The  TelMerge portion of the Plus version is almost  useless.  It
        supports only Hayes compatible modems. It's strange that MicroPro
        would give no modem choices after providing nine menus of printer
        selections.  The choice of network services is limited, with only
        one space to design an individual access. While it looks possible
        to  modify the TelMerge menu,  instructions are sketchy,  and the
        chore will be beyond average users.  There are no error  checking
        protocols,  only ASCII transfers. Line and character delays can't
        be built in, so it's easy to overrun services like CompuServe and
        slow bulletin-board style receivers. TelMerge wouldn't send blank
        lines  except as the first or last lines,  thereby losing desired
        paragraph separations.

        I could go on picking at flaws and apparent program "bugs," but I
        need  to  cover the one thing that would ruin WordStar  2000  for
        serious  users  even if everything else was  perfect--its  speed.
        WordStar  2000  is among the slowest word processors  I've  seen.
        WordStar 3.3 is no speed demon,  but putting it next to  WordStar
        2000 is like matching a sports car to a lawnmower.

        I used comparable 29K test files with 539 lines of identical text
        on an electronic disk to compare various operations.  Just moving
        the  cursor  from the first to last characters took  4.5  seconds
        under  WordStar 3.3 (CONTROL-QC) but 75.6 seconds under  WordStar
        2000) (CONTROL-CE).  The CONTROL-CE command cannot be interrupted
        under WordStar 2000 and must run to completion. Also, just moving
        the  cursor tagged the file as having been changed (as seen by  a
        "quit-abandon"  CONTROL-QA command) even though nothing had  been
        altered.

        Another  test replaced "the" with "the" throughout the file as  a
        whole  word only,  without asking for verification,  and  showing
        each  change.  WordStar  3.3 took 2 minutes 30.8  seconds,  while
        WordStar  2000  took 10 minutes 24.1  seconds.  The  same  search
        without  displaying  changes took 16.5 seconds with WordStar  3.3
        but 3 minutes 39.5 seconds with WordStar 2000.

        After  a simple find command,  a "next" command may be issued  to
        find the next occurrence.  WordStar 3.3 found the second "the" in
        text so quickly with it's CONTROL-L command it couldn't be  timed
        accurately  (less  than  0.8 second).  WordStar  2000  took  13.2
        seconds  with its CONTROL-N command because it slowly redisplayed
        the entire command with options before executing.

        On  printing  to disk,  which is required to send  WordStar  2000
        documents via a modem,  I printed from and to an electronic disk.
        WordStar 3.3 finished in 1 minute 38.9 seconds, but WordStar 2000
        needed 7 minutes 20.1 seconds.

        Virtually  every  aspect  of  WordStar 2000 is  too  slow  to  be
        practical.  That  slowness feeds back into other  functions  like
        finding  items  to tag for indexing or converting files from  one
        WordStar to another, making them equally impractical.

        Incidentally,  WordStar  and  WordStar 2000 data  files  are  not
        compatible.  The  new files are cut off from third-party programs
        like grammatical proofreaders.  A conversion program provided can
        move files from one WordStar to another but does only part of the
        job.  Converted files almost always have to be manually reformat-
        ted and cleaned up,  which, at the slow speed of the new program,
        can take hours.

        This  all means that serious word processing users  should  avoid
        WordStar  2000.  Put  away your checkbooks and don't,  under  any
        circumstances,  surrender  old copies of WordStar to  upgrade  to
        WordStar  2000.  You could "upgrade" yourself right into ineffic-
        iency  and costly losses in time and  productivity.  Moving  into
        WordStar  2000 could reduce word processing output by as much  as
        half  or two-thirds.  Instead,  look for revisions to the conven-
        tional  WordStar  and  WordStar  Professional   packages,   which
        continue to be fully supported MicroPro products.


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