Well  folks,  WORDSTAR  4.0 is here for us CP/M users  ---  sort  of!!  
After updating to WS4 on my IBM AT at work and using it for a while, I 
really wanted to update my WORDSTAR 3.3 CP/M version at home.  As soon 
as the new release was announced on GENIE, I called MicroPro and spent 
$94.00 for an upgrade.

The  first thing that I noticed when my CP/M WS4 upgrade arrived  (the 
day  before the Labor Day weekend), was that instead of a nice  three-
ring binder supplied with the IBM upgrade, the CP/M manual was spiral-
bound  and  didn't  really work in the  light-weight  cardboard  cover 
provided!  

Installation on my MSC-ICO CP/M+ computer with an Okidata 193  printer 
took  only  a few minutes using WINSTALL to do the  basic  set-up  and 
WSCHANGE  to  set up the special screen display  ESC  sequences.   The 
function  keys on my keyboard (which have key codes above 7F  Hex  and 
were easy to patch on WS 3.3) appear to be useless with WS4, so I  had 
to  rewrite  the operating system to translate the key  codes  to  the 
usual ^K, ^J, etc. needed for WS4.

At  this  point the keyboard and display seemed to work  pretty  well, 
especially  after changing most of the DELAY variables.  Then I  tried 
to  print  the  PRINT.TST file --- what a  disaster.   WS4  would  not 
recognize  the 12 CPI or the DP modes that were set as defaults.   All 
of the print came out in 10 CPI and NLQ mode except for the lines that 
were in italics or 17.1 CPI (which is an Okidata default), so I  tried 
to  BOLD these particular lines and as a result WS4 completely  forgot 
that it could print in the "Data Processing" mode.

As  a result, I tried to define the "CUSTOM" printer driver to be  all 
things  that  the Okidata 193 could do --- that  didn't  work  either, 
since  the  "CUSTOM" driver didn't cover all of the options.   Next  I 
tried to install my Olivetti typewriter as an option (to a serial port 
with  hardware handshaking), forget it --- no software support and  no 
documentation (as is possible as suggested in the WS4 documentation).

Now  on to "THE WORD", the patches from PROFILES magazine a few  years 
back  allowing THE WORD to be used from the opening menu  of  WORDSTAR 
3.3  are MUCH more user friendly than the current WS4  implementation.  
The new "THE WORD" does not seem to be as smart as the older,  smaller 
version.  I checked the spelling of files that MicroPro provided  with 
WS4  and  found that the new "THE WORD" does not recognize  some  very 
simple words that the older version does!

At  home  I use WORDSTAR to do programming, so I will  probably  stick 
with WORDSTAR 3.3.  My wife is a writer, so she will probably move  to 
WORDSTAR 4.0 --- when someone gets the bugs worked out of it.

PS:  as  a  matter of fact, the new "THE WORD"  had  problems  finding 
common words in this document!
