A Short History of WordStar (and Why the Files Still Matter)
MicroPro, amber screens, and a file format that never got a Word import filter.
TL;DR
WordStar was the professional word processor of the CP/M and early DOS years. The on-disk format used high-bit wrap and dot commands instead of a WYSIWYG page. Those files are still recoverable on Windows with a native parser — WordStar Converter.
Why it won, then vanished from menus
WordStar’s diamond cursor keys and on-screen menus made it the tool serious writers used. Microsoft Word later owned the GUI generation and never added a WordStar importer. The files did not disappear. The software around them did.
What the format still encodes
Release 7 documentation (1992) still describes the stream: wrap flags, print controls, extended characters, symmetrical sequences, dot commands, EOF 1Ah. That is enough to rebuild a readable DOCX or PDF if you parse it on purpose.
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