WordStar is a word processor application that had a dominant market share during the early- to mid-1980s. It was published by MicroPro International, and written for the CP/M operating system but later ported to MS-DOS. WordStar’s inclusion with the Osborne 1 computer made the program become the standard for much of the word-processing market. The last release of WordStar was in 1999.

There is a rumor that George R. R. Martin (Game of Thrones) still writes using WordStar for MS-DOS.

Step-by-Step:

1. Stop whatever the Altair is doing – raise “Stop”, then raise “Reset”.
2. Mount emulated disk 7 in drive 0 – switch 12 up, switch 2 up, switch 1 up, switch 0 up (all other switches down).
3. AUX2 down to load disk.
   Terminal will say “[mounted disk ‘DISK07.DSK: WordStar (CP/M program)’ in drive 0]”
4. To run bootable disk – switch 3 up (all others down).
5. AUX1 down. This will install the Disk Boot ROM and boot disk 0.
6. Terminal will display
   62K CP/M
   Version 2.2mits (07/28/80)
   Copyright 1980 by Burcon Inc.
   A>
7. Enter “WS” to launch WordStar.