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Note that the basic typing operations are performed by the left hand, without leaving the main keyboard. This system was devised during the days when keyboards had the Control key directly to the left of the A key ("where God intended"), instead of its position on modern keyboards to the extreme lower left. |
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Note that the basic typing operations are performed by the left hand, without leaving the main keyboard. This system was devised during the days when keyboards had the Control key directly to the left of the A key ("where God intended"), instead of its position on today's keyboards in the extreme lower left. |
^E
^S ^D
^X
Note that these letters represent the position of the keys on the left-hand side of a standard QWERTY keyboard.
By adding a control key prefix to these keys, the typist could control the movement of the cursor (or pointer) without using the "arrow keys". Ctrl-E moved the cursor one line up, Ctrl-X moved it one line down, Ctrl-S moved the cursor one character to the left, and Ctrl-D moved it one character to the right. Holding the Control-key combination down for a second or two invoked key repeat, as expected.
The next aspect of the "WordStar Diamond" was to move by words. Add Ctrl-A to move left by a word, and Ctrl-F to move the cursor to the next word to the right. The same mnemonic pattern of movement remains. Left of the invisible spot between the keys S and D moved to the left, and right of that invisible spot moved the cursor to the right.
E
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^A S--+--D ^F
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X
Page-Up and Page-Down were performed with Ctrl-R and Ctrl-C, respectively, since the R key is "up" (above the F key) and the C key is "down" (below the F key).
Fourth, there was screen movement. Ctrl-W would scroll the screen (but not the cursor) up one line, and Ctrl-Z would scroll the screen down one line, while keeping the cursor on the same line it was originally.
^W E ^R
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A---S--+--D---F
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^Z X ^C
Note that the basic typing operations are performed by the left hand, without leaving the main keyboard. This system was devised during the days when keyboards had the Control key directly to the left of the A key ("where God intended"), instead of its position on today's keyboards in the extreme lower left.
Although I do not consider it part of the WordStar Diamond, four common editing operations were available to the left hand: Delete the next character to the right (Ctrl-G), delete the next word to the right (Ctrl-T), toggle insert ON or OFF (Ctrl-V), and reformat the paragraph (Ctrl-B). By keeping the little finger of one's left hand anchored to the control key next to the "A", the trained typist could both type and make significant edits without looking down to the keyboard at all.
W E R ^T
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A---S--+--D---F---^G
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Z X C ^V ^B
WordStar also offered sequences consisting of a control-key lead-in and a one-character follow-up keystroke. The follow-up could be lowercase, uppercase, or control-shifted; "a" "A" and "^A" thus all did the same thing. Unlike the location-sensitive WordStar diamond, the lead-in keystrokes were mnemonic according to the class of actions each led into, and if no follow-up was typed immediately, they called up menus showing all possible follow-up keystrokes. Thus, Ctrl-Q invoked the Quick Menu, Ctrl-K invoked the Block Menu, Ctrl-O invoked the Onscreen menu, and Ctrl-P invoked the Print Menu. If the typist typed both keystrokes in rapid succession, the menu would not come up at all, but the operation would be performed directly.
For example, to mark the beginning of a block one typed "^K B" (think of Block). But "^K b" and "^K ^B" would do the same thing. To mark the end of a block one typed "^K K" (think of blocK). And again, "^K k" or "^K ^K" would likewise mark the end of the block.
The intuitive nature of the WordStar diamond caused it to be emulated in a number of other word processors and editing environments, even where not overtly documented. For example, [Robert Sawyer] points out that dBase (Ashton Tate), SuperCalc, Sidekick (Borland), the Borland editor, XTree Pro, and even Microsoft's own EDIT.COM (after DOS 5.0) used the cursor movement system originally developed by WordStar. VDE and TDE, both still in active development, use the WordStarDiamond and other WordStar-based commands for editing text.
From what I'm hearing now, the ^K key was actually selected because it is a strong finger (on the QwertyKeyboard).
WordMaster worked somewhat differently. For additional info, see WMvsWScmds