>>>>>>We're still using an old Word97 copy I have. Still fulfils 99% of our domestic word processing needs. Really didn't like Word 2007. Now if only I could find my old copy of Wordstar :-)
>>>>>
>>>>>I think I might be able to get a copy of the CP/M version of WordStar from a few people I know... got a 8" floppy drive?
>>>>
>>>>You seem to be older than me. My CP/M machine had a 5.25" floppy... formatted in some weird 640K format that nothing else could read. And a real disk with - drum roll - 10M (formatted to 9.4). And a green monitor :). And an excellent keyboard. I guess the keyboard and the crt outlived the rest of it.
>>>
>>Perhaps not quite as old as one might assume -- I only happen to know a few folks who have working CP/M systems -- some of which were "frankenstiened" from various bits acquired from salvaged parts. Most of those systems that were built had 8" floppies formatted at 1.2MB. My first introduction to microcomptuers was back in 1979 when school had acquired a pair of TRS-80 micros back when I was in the 10th grade.
>
>My first programming was on an HP-29C calculator in 1978. My first micro was a CP/M machine I bought from a work colleague ( an EE ) in about 1982. It was a Jim Ferguson Big Board I (he bought a II to replace it).
>
>He bought the BBI as a kit, and - get this - he got his girlfriend to wire-wrap it (if that's not true love, I don't know what is [yes, he did end up marrying her]). That was a pretty big task, and she did a great job. When he took a trip down to California a few months later I got him to pick up a 5MHz Z80B processor and 64K of 200ns SRAM, and matching crystal oscillator. That was quite a speed boost from the original 2MHz, but the board was totally stable, everything worked great.
>
>I bought Turbo Pascal for that machine and did some programming with that. A year or so later we got our first IBM PC at work, and we bought Turbo Pascal for that as well. I ran the same program on it and my home CP/M machine, my machine was significantly faster. My machine wouldn't do any graphics, though, which was a big drawback. At work I created a simulator and used the PC to brute-force a manufacturing problem that was considered intractable; graphics were crucial for visualizing that problem. After that, anything that didn't have graphics capability seemed too limiting.

Whats wire wrapping ?