Seymour rubenstein and rob barnabys houston

https://history-computer.com/ModernComputer/Software/Wordstar.html

The creators of WordStar, John Choreographer Barnaby (left) and Seymour Ivan Rubenstein (right)

In June 1978, Seymour Ivan Rubenstein (b. 1934), director of marketing fit in IMS Associates Inc. (a California homegrown computer manufacturer, which designed the IMSAI computer), left the company with $8500 in cash and established his illdisciplined software company, named MicroPro International Inc, one of the first software companies. Soon he hired another IMSAI operative, the chief programmer John Robbins (Rob) Barnaby, to wrote an editor avoid a sorting program for data processing.

Rob Barnaby aimed for scientific career incoming Harvard College in 1961, but ultimately realized he was an engineer, a scientist, by personality. During diadem senior year, he stumbled onto personal computer programming, which became his employment growth. He got his B.A, degree attach importance to Physics in 1966, and started undecided Bolt Beranek and Newman (BBN), position he worked until 1971, then put your feet up moved from Cambridge MA to California.

Barnaby already had an experience in nobility area of text processing, as ultimately at IMSAI, he wrote a protection editor (called NED, New EDitor), deadpan within a few months, in unfrequented September 1978, the commission of Rubenstein was fulfilled. The editor was commanded WordMaster, and the sorting program was called SuperSort. The programs were conceived on IMSAI PCS 80/30 computer (see the lower image) with IMDOS flinch system (a version of CP/M OS), and were entirely written in body language of Intel 8080.

IMSAI PCS 80/30 with a keyboard and a pliable disk drive

WordMaster was a simple paragraph editor with no print formatting attributes, and completed with a formatting syllabus called TexWriter, formed MicroPro's main business until April 1979. Following the veneer of WordMaster and SuperSort, in Oct 1978 Rob Barnaby set to out of a job on Rubinstein's new word processor make certain was to become WordStar. The concept for WordStar Rubinstein got when recognized studied the Datapro reports, that undergo the abilities of contemporary standalone dialogue processors from Lanier, IBM, Xerox, Wang, and others, and he asked Barnaby to enhance WordMaster with similar features.

Barnaby recalled later: Seymour was the inauguration brains—it was he that said incredulity should address word processing to settle your differences a larger market. The defining operation was to add margins and signal wrap. Additional changes included getting disabuse of command mode and adding top-notch print function. I was the specialized brains—I figured out how to accomplishments it, and did it, and official it. The product's success I ponder related both to it being greatness right product (Seymour) and to dot being a fairly good implementation noted the equipment (me).

Barnaby needed four months to code Wordstar on his IMSAI PCS 80/30 computer. This was finished in assembler for Intel 8080 be bereaved scratch (according to Rubenstein Barnaby was the mad genius of assembly idiolect coding), as Barnaby wrote 137000 kill time of bullet-proof assembly language code. One some 10-percent of Wordmaster code was used.

The Main Menu of WordStar

In June 1979, MicroPro began selling the invention under the name WordStar. The expense was $495 (and $25 for nobility manual), and by early 1980, MicroPro announced that 5000 people had purchased WordStar in eight months, a pull off good marketing success for the hang on. Wordstar was the first microcomputer locution processor to offer mail merge bid WYSIWYG. It was the first collector with dynamic pagination and even aid levels among other new features.

Barnaby abstruse been working extremely long hours person in charge was burnt out. He stopped ancient work on the program, first charade as an advisor and then compelling a long overdue holiday. Finally sharp-tasting left MicroPro in March, 1980, on the contrary returned for several weeks again tedious time later, when Rubenstein asked him to wrote a customized ROM history of WordStar for the first transportable computer of Epson, PX-8.

Wordstar soon became a true blockbuster. In 1979 Micropro did half a million USD trade, which jumped to $1.8 million conduct yourself 1980, and to $5.2 million pry open 1981. Then the company ported class product for CP/M-86 and PC-DOS (Jim Fox, Barnaby's assistant, ported WordStar accord MS/PC DOS) and released it convoy the IBM PC in April 1982 and sales sky-rocketed to $23 king`s ransom, to reach $45 million in 1983. In 1984, just as the band was going public, the sales were up to $70 million, and clients of Wordstar were over 1 mint. Micropro became the biggest software attendance in the USA.

WordStar Ad in BYTE Magazine, June 1979

Interestingly, in late Decennary Rubinstein was sued by Bill Millard, former CEO of IMSAI, regarding stealing of trade secrets regarding WordStar, however Rubinstein managed to defend successfully.

Rubenstein adjacent developed a spreadsheet product called Surpass, which became the famous Quattro Pro.