The “Dune” screenplay was written in MS-DOS

Of interest to folks here, because we love talking about writing tools.

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MS-DOS worked for George RR Martin!

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Some people use pencils.

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And typewriters. :slight_smile:

Can’t recall the names of the authors doing it…

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Harlan Ellison used typewriters write up until he died, in 2018. As I recall, he preferred a particular brand and model and had multiples—possibly dozens of them—to cannibalize for parts.

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Or it’s the reason he doesn’t get anything done, haha.

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All kidding aside, DOS boxes had some really, really good text editors. I remember this software called QEdit that would actually let you select vertical blocks (i.e. “columns 1-4, rows 10-20”). It was pretty awesome.

And other than issues with running out of memory on a sufficiently-sized file, everything was pretty snappy. I would imagine they’d make great super-dedicated text editing machines. :slight_smile:

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My first editor software was WordStar. It had excellent find/replace features. Writing text in a non-GUI environment is a truly focused effort.

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Page 87:

                __        _      
              _/  \    _(\(o     
             /     \  /  _  ^^^o 
            /   !   \/  ! '!!!v' 
           !  !  \ _' ( \____    
           ! . \ _!\   \===^\)   
            \ \_!  / __!         
             \!   /    \         
       (\_      _/   _\ )        
        \ ^^--^^ __-^ /(__       
         ^^----^^    "^--v'

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3= / =D <::::::::::]==o
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To be fair, doing much of anything in MS-DOS was a truly focused effort. Multitasking was largely impossible, other than TSR utilities that would sit in the keyboard loop and do stuff. :slight_smile:

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Tom Hanks has a thing for typewriters. But I don’t know how much he writes with them vs. just collecting them.

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We were given pfs:Write and Lotus 1-2-3 v1. I “borrowed” copies to use on my personal 2 floppy, no hard drive portable.

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Neal Stephenson writes (or at least wrote the three-tomb Baroque Cycle) with a fountain pen.

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I love this.


Our friend Joe Haldeman, the science fiction writer, writes in fountain pen in bound books on an enclosed porch before dawn every morning, lit only by a kerosene lantern.

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