The art of writing has become a cluttered one to follow, typically these days through a graphical word processor. There may be a virtual page in front of you, but it’s encumbered by much UI annoyance. To combat this a variety of distraction free software and appliances have been created over the years.
But it’s perhaps [Liam Proven]’s one we like the most — it’s a bootable 16-bit DOS environment with a selection of simple text and office packages on board. No worries about being distracted by social media when you don’t even have networking.
The zip file, in the releases section of the repository, is based upon SvarDOS, and comes with some software we well remember from back in the day. There’s MS Word 5.5 for DOS, in the public domain since it was released as a Y2K fix, Arnor Protext, and the venerable AsEasyAs spreadsheet alongside a few we’re less familiar with. He makes the point that a machine with a BIOS is required, but those of you unwilling to enable BIOS emulation on a newer machine should be able to run it in a VM or an emulator. Perhaps it’s one to take on the road with us, and bang away in DOS alongside all the high-powered executives on the train with their fancy business projections.
We recently talked about SvarDOS, and it shouldn’t come as a surprise that our article linked to a piece [Liam] wrote for The Register.
Personally I would fire up either one of my classic Macs or my Atari Mega ST both have very clean GUIs.
But not distraction free, in the context this is offering. That says, I don’t consider this that serious given MS weird news selected rather than WordPerfect. Really this entire thing is rather unserious as running a terminal with modern editors is completely feasible without booting into 16 bit DOS. No old hardware needed.
This is my project. You miss 2 absolutely core points.
WordPerfect is still on sale. I can’t use it.
Microsoft made Word 5.5 freeware as a Y2K fix. That is why I picked v5.5 not v6. Word 6 for DOS is better but it is not free.
This is also why I included the WordPerfect Editor. That is freeware.
I was a professional WordPerfect support expert in the 1980s. I know it well. I don’t like it and I don’t like its UI, but I can drive it. I included the only free thing with that UI I could.
Did you not understand the “distraction free” part?
If you are in a terminal, you are one alt-tab away from the Internet, the biggest and best distraction machine humanity has ever built.
Even if you are in a console-mode only Linux with an internet connection, you’re still seconds from email, Usenet news, IRC, and a million people to waste time with.
DOS blocks all that. It doesn’t talk Wifi at all, and I intentionally do not supply the image with a TCP/IP stack.
On MacOS, you could easily delete the finder so that the computer boots directly into word or teachtext.
In fact all you needed on the disk was the System file in the System folder and your application. Even Desk accessories were optional. Saves time when booting from floppy.
On Win95/98 you used to be able to slip a different shell into it which was almost a normal application and not terribly difficult to write yourself. It just had a few extra events to consume.
On X11 you could have a list of applications and window manager to start in your .xprofile and you could make it as simple as you want, even running a single application with no window manager (maybe not ideal)
Sure, yes, but a classic Mac already is a low-distraction writing environment. The thing is, not that many people have them any more, and of those that do, fewer of the 25+ year old machines still work… or their batteries hold a charge.
Not as misty as this, and more annoying to run in a modern context.
By far the best professional writing environment was XYWrite. It was written entirely in Assembler, so it was blazing fast on the slowest PCs. All you had was a heavily macro-enabled text-mode writer. It felt like everything could be customized. I still miss it every now and then.
XYWrite was brilliant. Used it for a long time late 80s to early 90s, programming in Assembler, BASIC, Pascal and C. First on a dual floppy Apricot “PC” and then on other PC clones, probably none of which had more than 1MB RAM.
I do know about XyWrite although I’ve never spent more than a few minutes trying it out.
I am not sure but I do not think it was shareware, though. The authors’ successor company, Nota Bene, is still trading: https://www.notabene.com/
I don’t want to step on anyone’s ownership or rights. So, for instance, I have Word 6 for DOS running just fine on SvarDOS here, and WordPerfect 6.2 as well, but both products are still on sale today. They are not by any stretch “abandonware”.
Agreed. All I remember was a highly reluctant transition over several years sometime in the early 90’s.
The need to eliminate distraction, and the desire for nostalgia, are why I still have an Apple IIGS in my bedroom. I journal in AppleWorks every night.
What’s wrong with a proper tiling wm like sway, with a workspace devoted to writing? Add a terminal with your text editor of choice, and you have an extremely clean distraction-free setup without having to cripple your system or workflow with ancient software.
Better yet, the most important tool for distraction-free writing (or anything else): self-discipline and self-control.
I was thinking exactly the same. But if you really want hipster bonus points: Install Linux (no X) + vi/emacs + aspell + LaTeX + fbi/fbgs (uses framebuffer to render LaTeX generated pdfs). Need more points? Just buy a paper notebook and a fountain pen. Jokes aside I really like this kind of projects, is cool to learn about old software.
This was asked on Mastodon as well. I replied:
A big reason is that the available selection of console mode writing tools is awful, whereas there are lots of superb ones for DOS.
I personally wouldn’t wish Vim or Emacs on anybody. I know they have many fans, but I detest them both. David Given’s WordGrinder is about the only one.
https://social.meenzen.net/@samuel/113755153739818524
Back in the day in the late 1980s I had an AT&T 3B1 which was actually made for AT&T by Convergent Technologies. It had a Hercules compatible green screen monitor and a 68K processor running at some pathing like 10 MHz. The operating system was mostly Sys V, but there were pieces of System 7 snd BSD in the mix as well.
The place I worked had source licenses for both BSD and AT&T Sys V. I read in the AT&T Writers Workbench source from the 9-track tape on a Vax and the. UUCPed it over to my 3B1 where it compiled without a hitch. My preferred editor was vi and my output was ditroff set up for a LasserJet 4. I used Writers Workbench for proof reading. WWB had neat tools to scan text for and rate it for sexism, grammar check and assign Fleisch and Kincade grade level scores for readability, etc. WWB was really a nifty set of tools.
I used my 3B1 for about 12 years, but a GAL chip failed on the main board in the data separator for the MFM data coming from the 80 meg hard drive. I’ve got the system schematics and the equations for the GAL, but no way to program one even if I could find the correct chip. Maybe some day….
I’m sure that works well for you, but the idea is remove even the possibility of a distraction from the computer itself. If your on your desktop with all of it’s distractions on a different workspace, it only takes a click to get back to the distractions.
As far as discipline, if you have that level of discipline, I’m happy for you. But humans, being the squishy organic things they are aren’t so mechanically standardized that we all operate the same. Individuals have different strengths and weaknesses, and not everyone has the kind of discipline you seem to.
Thank you! This is exactly correct.
This will last whole 5 seconds before you get bored of your non-distractive writing environment and dig out your phone :)
I wouldn’t say that. I used to get lost reading long text files in Norton Commander.
That white-blue UI has something to it. Amiga is similarly here, I think.
I recommend playing some IFs there (aka text adventures).
Such as classics from Infocom, for example.
I mean, who doesn’t like to play “Leather Goddesses of Phobos” every now and then ? ;)
The Atari 8-bitters (400, 800..) have a blue-white color scheme, too.
PS: A serious note about phone addiction..
It wears off after about a week of withtrawal/not using it.
That’s when you regain your full concentration and
be able to watch a whole TV episode of your favorite series without interruption.
Midnight Commander in Linux is current, and looks the same as Norton Commander.
I still use mc for quick directory navigation and file manipulation. Its VFS layer for rpm, tgz and other file formats is a good option. I was annoyed when RHEL5 dropped the package.
This is so true :D
What about just turning off Wi-fi?
Using some new “app” or “environment” for distraction free-ness is just adding new distraction (because it is a new toy).
You can still go and play Freecell or whatever… but not on DOS, you can’t.
Freecell isn’t distraction, it is just something else you start doing when you should write. Distraction = something that happens without you doing anything.
If we are at this level, then the person should be locked to keyboard which then is locked to desktop, remove many buttons from keyboard.
I’m pretty sure you can find some “amusement” from DOS too. Start drawing ascii graphics at command line for example.. Write basic programs or .bat that “make DOS less distracting” :D – how do you prevent that?
Hi, since apparently a lot of you don’t get the reference:
Not long ago there had been news about sci-fi writers who had remained to stick to WordStar (DOS) as a distraction-free environment.
https://www.theregister.com/2024/08/06/wordstar_7_the_last_ever/
And these claims are true, I think.
On DOS systems and old Unix systems, there’s a feeling of eerie silence.
There’s no pop window that appears suddenly, no auto-play feature, no disk warning messages. Nothing.
You’re starring on a blinking cursor, so to say.
And sometimes you can’t help but think that the blinking pattern might have changed a bit.
There’s a feeling of lonelyness, of a vast void and a world of silence.
In video games, people would speak about “liminal spaces”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEtTpkzv50c
Oh cool — thanks for featuring this!
I already have an idea for version 1.1: add WordStar. It’s horribly antiquated, but some people still love it, including Robert J Sawyer and George R R Martin. The company hasn’t existed in something like 30 years.
https://www.sfwriter.com/wordstar.htm
My vote goes to Wordperfect. I remember feeling deflated when I had no choice but to move to Microsoft Word.
I can’t include WordPerfect. It is still on sale:
https://www.wordperfect.com/en/
It’s very much a living product. I have a copy of 6.2 for DOS and it works a treat, but it’s not freeware or shareware or anything else. That’s why I included the freeware WordPerfect Editor, which is freely-available.
The Classic MacOS version is freeware, and so is the Linux version. I have written about how to get them:
https://www.theregister.com/2022/07/20/wordperfect_for_unix_for_linux/
If this can run on a handheld device with a qwerty keyboard it would be perfect for writing and journaling from the comfort of a warm bed. I’ve longed for such a word processor.
Well, it is possible to run PC/XT emulation on Pocket PCs (PPCs) and Handheld PCs (HPC) running Windows CE.
These ran either Windows CE 2.11 or 3.0; later devices ran on Windows Mobile, which added a framework on top of plain Windows CE.
(Known as Pocket PC 2000, Pocket PC 2002, Windows Mobile 2003, Windows Mobile 5, Windows Mobile 6.x)
http://www.mediator-software.com/pocketdos/introduction.htm
PC/XT emulators also ran on Psion Series 3 and 5, I think.
These were very beloved handhelds with a fine keyboard.
They were being used as portable electronic typewriters.
https://palmtop.cosi.com.pl/2011/06/15/pc-xt-in-your-psion/
But besides that, there had been very compact DOS handhelds.
HP 100LX/200LX, Poqet PC, Highscreen Handy Organizer etc.
The downside is that they all had CGA screens. 640×200 resolution.
For relaxing wordprocessing on OS it needs VGA, though. About 720×400 pixels.
Or at least good old Hercules graphics, which was very hires @720×348 pixels. EGA was still too blocky, sadly.
The Olivetti M24 (AT&T 6300) had a double-scanned 640×400 output,
which was sort of an unoffical standard that many portable computers had used in the 80s (Compaq, Toshiba etc).
They were CGA compatible, but drew everything as 640×400 pixel.
Some applications and games even had native support and drew at full resolution.
The text-font was much better than CGA’s 8×8 font, of course.
An alternative to all of this is the Amstrad PCW (Schneider Joyce).
It’s a cute little British wordprocessor from the 80s that had a green monitor (color monitor, actually, with only green gun connected).
It runs both CP/M and a wordprocessor software. Even has games.
It should be quite distraction free, unless a modern GUI such ax AMX Desktop is being used, maybe. ;)
Speaking of cute little wordprocessors, it’s also possible to use dedicated serial terminals. Glass terminals with a CRT screen. Such as DEC VT100.
On DOS, they can be used via CTTY command.
Problem are the control codes, though.
Both the terminal and the wordprocessor software should know them.
ANSI control sequences used to be popular on plain MS-DOS and its applications (ANSI art, used by BBSes/mailboxes).
Not sure if WordStar has support for them.
Back in the CP/M and MP/M days it was still normal to specify a terminal type during installation of the software.
Non-wordprocessing programs like Turbo Pascal asked for it, even, I think.
If the application has no terminal type or CRT device type support,
then a multi-user/-multitasking DOS such as PC-MOS/386, Wendin DOS or FlexOS etc. might help.
These DOSes have virtual screens, they can intercept DOS screen writes and send them to supported terminals or virtual consoles (on host).
Excellent info. TY.
This might be the penultimate. The acme is the Canon Cat.
Noice. I could never dream of equalling that…
Why not use RISC OS, it’s a great desktop environment and has a word processor EasiWriter which is compatible with Word doc files. Where it is lacking is in web based distractions, and the browsers are either fast and incompatible, or unusable slow for modern javascript heavy sites.
Two main reasons.
This will run on almost any junk PC or laptop someone might have lying around in a cupboard.
RISC OS only runs on Arm kit, and yes that does include the RasPi now, there are a lot more old laptops than Raspberry Pis, and you can’t take a Pi to the coffee shop or the pub and work away in a corner.
It’s familiar to even Windows or Linux users who know their way around a keyboard, rather than being new and strange. In addition, it has a wide assortment of apps, some with their own unique and idiosyncratic UIs (which is why I included the WordPerfect Editor) but most of the later ones with fairly standard keyboard UIs.
Whereas much as I love RISC OS, I am not that familiar with its keyboard UI after 35 years or so, and it really needs a mouse. DOS doesn’t.
I’ve thought about going the distraction free route using an old computer, but I suspect the best way is with a Raspberry Pi and monitor.
Just pop in an SD card with your favoured minimal OS and a simple editor and type away.
When finished stick another SD card in with a suitable OS for all the distraction you need… :)
As I said in the comment above yours:
You can’t take a Pi to the coffee shop or the pub and work away in a corner.
Secondly, once you have written your magnum opus in Easywriter on RISC OS – how you do get it off? No modern OS can read an ADFS disk. Everything can read FAT. How do you convert the file format? LibreOffice can open MS Word for DOS .DOC and Wordstar.
I might use dosbox to run some of this software. I think I forgot some important dosbox commands, let me just google the dosbox wiki first. on this day I wrote absolutely nothing and could not get the .exe to run in dosbox either
BTW, I have now updated this to v1.1, adding WordStar 7, PC Outline, Acrobat Reader, long filename support, and the latest SvarDOS fixes for 2025.