Haemogoblin
Experienced Member
I recently bought a boxed copy of Wordstar but the 3.5" floppies are dead. I was wondering if anyone might have a copy of this version of Wordstar.
Thanks
James
Thanks
James
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Looking for Wordstar 3.40 for DOS
- Thread starter Haemogoblin
- Start date
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
Kind of unusual for a 'boxed' set of disks to be borked, unless of course they were somehow magnetically zapped. I'm wondering if maybe you could give them another chance on different machine?
Stone
10k Member
When floppies are ~ 30 years old I would never be surprised if they failed to work properly whether they were boxed or not. It's just the nature of the beast. 
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
When floppies are ~ 30 years old I would never be surprised if they failed to work properly whether they were boxed or not. It's just the nature of the beast.
Still doesn't rule out a faulty floppy drive. I've got some 3.5 floppy's that have been laying around in open shoe boxes since the 80's and still work. If it was me, I'd do a little more poking around before trashing them.
Same here, but climate and distance to seawater are a factor.Agent Orange said:
By the way, I have seen copies of some Wordstar Version 3.xx on some of the image disk archives and old user groups... don't know about 3.40 specifically. Its worth putting a little online searching effort to find it if you don't get a quick direct URL for what you're looking for.
Chuck(G)
25k Member
It's pretty easy to find 3.3 and 4.0, but 3.4 seems to be rather uncommon.
Agent Orange
Veteran Member
I have 5.0 - about 28 or so 5.25 floppy's worth.
krebizfan
Veteran Member
WordStar 3.4 was the first version to support umlauts and seems to have been supplied mainly to Europe. I wonder which system those disks were targeted for; WS 3.4 seems to be before widespread 3.5" deployment with a 1984 release.
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Chuck(G)
25k Member
Did 3.4 also come in a CP/M version, like 3.3 and 4.0? Was there ever a CP/M 5.0 version?
I liked 4.0--I used it both on CP/M 2.2 and MS-DOS--it was very stable.
I liked 4.0--I used it both on CP/M 2.2 and MS-DOS--it was very stable.
Haemogoblin
Experienced Member
Hi there guys
I found the box while I was out visiting the coast, it was in an old charity shop The box and books are in surprisingly good condition, they dont look used. The 3.5" floppies looked ok, however on putting them inside my floppy drive, I discovered my drive struggled to make them spin. I took them out and tried turning the center metal spindle and it was a lot hard to turn then any of my other working floppies. Also even if they did spin, would my PC even read them? Is there not a chance they are formatted to 360kb?
The disk's are labelled Olivette, one just says Wordstar 3.40 and the other says the same, but with a yellow label and Olivette added to the top.
Ideally, I'd like to find a copy of 3.30 or 3.40 which the manual states it is written for and write them to floppy, scan in the original labels and make new working floppies.
P.S I have been trying to find 3.30, however the only version I did find doesn't work right. I can creat a document, save it, but if I alter the document, I can save / update the document. When ever i save, it returns the document to it's original state, prior to alteration. So if anyone has one that works, well that would be amazing.
I found the box while I was out visiting the coast, it was in an old charity shop
The box and books are in surprisingly good condition, they dont look used. The 3.5" floppies looked ok, however on putting them inside my floppy drive, I discovered my drive struggled to make them spin. I took them out and tried turning the center metal spindle and it was a lot hard to turn then any of my other working floppies. Also even if they did spin, would my PC even read them? Is there not a chance they are formatted to 360kb?The disk's are labelled Olivette, one just says Wordstar 3.40 and the other says the same, but with a yellow label and Olivette added to the top.
Ideally, I'd like to find a copy of 3.30 or 3.40 which the manual states it is written for and write them to floppy, scan in the original labels and make new working floppies.
P.S I have been trying to find 3.30, however the only version I did find doesn't work right. I can creat a document, save it, but if I alter the document, I can save / update the document. When ever i save, it returns the document to it's original state, prior to alteration. So if anyone has one that works, well that would be amazing.
krebizfan
Veteran Member
Did you mean Olivetti who sold a number of systems that supported both 3.5" drives and WordStar under their own name and under the "Acorn" label? The one that got the most play in the US was the M-24 (AT&T 6300) which had DSDD (720kB) floppies with a format that different slightly from that used by MS-DOS. I don't know about disk formats of any Olivetti CP/M systems or if any Olivetti systems shipped with single sided 3.5" drives.
You may have to try a bunch of different programs designed to read other floppy formats before finding one that can read your diskettes.
On the other problem: WS 3.3 uses the FCB interface of DOS 1. It will not work correctly with FAT32 drives or under some more modern OSes.
You may have to try a bunch of different programs designed to read other floppy formats before finding one that can read your diskettes.
On the other problem: WS 3.3 uses the FCB interface of DOS 1. It will not work correctly with FAT32 drives or under some more modern OSes.
Haemogoblin
Experienced Member
Lol yes that's the one!
As I mentioned in my last post, the disks are sadly not working. So using software will not make any difference.
I'm using Dosbox to run the software on a Win XP system.
As I mentioned in my last post, the disks are sadly not working. So using software will not make any difference.
I'm using Dosbox to run the software on a Win XP system.
krebizfan
Veteran Member
You might consider cracking the 3.5" shells to see why the disks are not spinning. It could be dust or lint clogging up the innards. Open the slide cover and see if anything is visible. Or if dust is leaking out the center ring. If you do see dust, it must be removed.
The steps involve removing the spring and then the cover slide, pinch the sides of the disk which splits the cover open, slide a tiny screwdriver in the slot, move towards a corner and break the seal of the corner. Repeat with the other corners. Remove whatever is blocking disk movement. If done carefully, reversing the process would put the disk back together. If the disk starts working, make a copy promptly.
I don't know how you have setup DOSBOX. If DOSBOX is accessing XP hard disk, that could confuse WordStar 3.3. If you can setup a system using DOS 3.3 (or earlier) on either a physical hard disk or a defined FAT16 virtual hard disk of less than 32MB if possible, that would maximize your chances of successfully using WordStar. Since WordStar 3.3 uses FCBs, WordStar does not know about directories. Any code that automatically changes directories will make old saved files vanish from WordStar. Really, there is a good chance you have a good copy of WordStar but modern tools don't correctly emulate old disks to permit WordStar to work.
The steps involve removing the spring and then the cover slide, pinch the sides of the disk which splits the cover open, slide a tiny screwdriver in the slot, move towards a corner and break the seal of the corner. Repeat with the other corners. Remove whatever is blocking disk movement. If done carefully, reversing the process would put the disk back together. If the disk starts working, make a copy promptly.
I don't know how you have setup DOSBOX. If DOSBOX is accessing XP hard disk, that could confuse WordStar 3.3. If you can setup a system using DOS 3.3 (or earlier) on either a physical hard disk or a defined FAT16 virtual hard disk of less than 32MB if possible, that would maximize your chances of successfully using WordStar. Since WordStar 3.3 uses FCBs, WordStar does not know about directories. Any code that automatically changes directories will make old saved files vanish from WordStar. Really, there is a good chance you have a good copy of WordStar but modern tools don't correctly emulate old disks to permit WordStar to work.
Haemogoblin
Experienced Member
Hi there thanks for the suggestion, that does however raise the question of how i create a dos 3.0 partition, i dont have a copy of dos 3.0.
Whats FCB? I'm not familair with it.
By the sounds of it, i might be better off finding version 4.0 for and serious sort of use.
Whats FCB? I'm not familair with it.
By the sounds of it, i might be better off finding version 4.0 for and serious sort of use.
Stone
10k Member
He said 3.3 or earlier, not 3.0 specifically.
If you want an image of DOS 3.0, 3.1, 3.2 or 3.3 I can help you out.
Haemogoblin
Experienced Member
That would be really helpful thank you. Sorry, i probably should have elected to leave the 0 off the end, but I did mean a DOS 3 partition in general
Make a virtual partition and then format it using a DOS 3.x floppy, would be my first thought.
krebizfan
Veteran Member
First off, even if you can't solve how to read the disks, please take a picture of them. Most sources don't list WordStar 3.4 as a released version so having proof it exists will encourage software archivists to find a copy. Possibly even offer the disks to a specialist to see if the contents can be recovered. Not critical, there should be many thousands of copies even though 3.4 doesn't seem to shipped in the US.
FCB stands for File Control Block which is disk access method used in DOS 1 and is nearly identical to the method used by CP/M. When DOS 2 was introduced, an improved disk access method was added. DOS versions through 6.22 are supposed to correctly support FCB but some software will have problems because of edge cases. The newer the version, the more likely the problem. Later OSes often break compatibility. Dosbox may not handle all conditions for software using an interface obsoleted 30 years ago. For a longer explanation, see http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wsdos-support/119-wordstar-3x-and-windows-9x-me
You don't have to use DOS 3.3 or earlier. I meant to suggest using the earliest version of DOS you can find with a disk partition no larger than 32MB. There are potentially hundreds of possible causes that could prevent WS 3.3 from working. Trying to figure exact which one applies for you could take weeks of testing.
Version 4 is much easier to work with. Versions 5, 6 and 7 are further improved versions of what started out as the WordStar clone Newword. WordStar.org will cover topics that might be prove useful getting into the WordStar experience.
FCB stands for File Control Block which is disk access method used in DOS 1 and is nearly identical to the method used by CP/M. When DOS 2 was introduced, an improved disk access method was added. DOS versions through 6.22 are supposed to correctly support FCB but some software will have problems because of edge cases. The newer the version, the more likely the problem. Later OSes often break compatibility. Dosbox may not handle all conditions for software using an interface obsoleted 30 years ago. For a longer explanation, see http://www.wordstar.org/index.php/wsdos-support/119-wordstar-3x-and-windows-9x-me
You don't have to use DOS 3.3 or earlier. I meant to suggest using the earliest version of DOS you can find with a disk partition no larger than 32MB. There are potentially hundreds of possible causes that could prevent WS 3.3 from working. Trying to figure exact which one applies for you could take weeks of testing.
Version 4 is much easier to work with. Versions 5, 6 and 7 are further improved versions of what started out as the WordStar clone Newword. WordStar.org will cover topics that might be prove useful getting into the WordStar experience.
Stone
10k Member
That would certainly be one of the last things I would try.
Why not try the easy way first? Then, if you get lucky and happen to be somewhat successful, you can move on to more difficult, less-likely-to-succeed-the-first-time adventures.
Try installing DOS on one of your earlier machines. It doesn't require any finesse and you can then test the questionable disks quite readily. It just doesn't make any sense to go the more difficult route if you might discover the disks are bad to begin with.
Ole Juul
Veteran Member
Why not try the easy way first? Then, if you get lucky and happen to be somewhat successful, you can move on to more difficult, less-likely-to-succeed-the-first-time adventures.
Try installing DOS on one of your earlier machines. It doesn't require any finesse and you can then test the questionable disks quite readily. It just doesn't make any sense to go the more difficult route if you might discover the disks are bad to begin with.
Exactly!
On the other hand, trying to do a jigsaw puzzle blindfolded is a good exercise if one is not actually looking for results. Seriously, DOS is an operating system in its own right. Why mix it together with another one?
Haemogoblin
Experienced Member
I'd like to have WordStar working on the XP machine I have, as that's the one I type on and run all my old DOS programs on.
DOSbox setup
All of my programs and software are kept inside a folder called "oldgames", DOSbox recognizes this as the C: partition. So when it boots up, I'm in the root of "Oldgames". I realise this means that DOSbox is reading a FAT32 filesystem and not an older DOS FAT file system.
Thoughts
Would it be practical do you think for me to install a second smaller hard drive and make it's primary partition DOS? Or perhaps make a DOS boot disk and boot the machine up from floppy and run WS that way?
I'll get photos uploaded later this week, the box is over at my partners along with the PC I was installing it on. One of the reasons I bought it was to save it from destruction or getting trashed.
As for donating the floppies to a specialist, frankly YES! But someone will need to point me in the direction of such a person lol If I can source a copy of 3.30 or 4, I'd be more then happy to donate these floppies to someone who can get them working and get the data off them. That being said, I wouldn't mind a copy of what is on the floppies, if they get them working
krebizfan - Thanks for the link, this sounds exactly like what I was experiencing. However reading further down the page.
"Windows NT4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, don't run on top of DOS but have a DOS emulation that supports may DOS programs. The FCB problem in WordStar 3 doesn't occur when WordStar is run under these operating systems."
Last night my GF commented on how I was nuts to be trying to run such an old piece of software. The way I see it, stuff like this needs saving. Once it's gone, thats it. A piece of computer history has vanished from existence.
DOSbox setup
All of my programs and software are kept inside a folder called "oldgames", DOSbox recognizes this as the C: partition. So when it boots up, I'm in the root of "Oldgames". I realise this means that DOSbox is reading a FAT32 filesystem and not an older DOS FAT file system.
Thoughts
Would it be practical do you think for me to install a second smaller hard drive and make it's primary partition DOS? Or perhaps make a DOS boot disk and boot the machine up from floppy and run WS that way?
I'll get photos uploaded later this week, the box is over at my partners along with the PC I was installing it on. One of the reasons I bought it was to save it from destruction or getting trashed.
As for donating the floppies to a specialist, frankly YES! But someone will need to point me in the direction of such a person lol If I can source a copy of 3.30 or 4, I'd be more then happy to donate these floppies to someone who can get them working and get the data off them. That being said, I wouldn't mind a copy of what is on the floppies, if they get them working
krebizfan - Thanks for the link, this sounds exactly like what I was experiencing. However reading further down the page.
"Windows NT4, Windows 2000, and Windows XP, don't run on top of DOS but have a DOS emulation that supports may DOS programs. The FCB problem in WordStar 3 doesn't occur when WordStar is run under these operating systems."
Last night my GF commented on how I was nuts to be trying to run such an old piece of software. The way I see it, stuff like this needs saving. Once it's gone, thats it. A piece of computer history has vanished from existence.
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