WORDSTAR PATCHES by Peter Yee One of the nice "features" of WordStar is that by running under the CP/M operating system, it works on an incredible number of different computers. As a result, quite a bit of information exists on how to modify the program to suit your own needs. One modification you might consider, if you happen to use WordStar 3.3 is to eliminate the giant logo that appears at the beginning of the program. This information was found in the Morrow Computer Users' newsletter and modified slightly for the Apple computer. Use a working copy of WordStar before starting!!!! Instruction Remarks Put DDT.COM and DDT (Dynamic Debugging Tool) is used to WS.COM on the same make the changes to WordStar. diskette. A>DDT WS.COM Type the boldfaced instructions. DDT VER 2.2 NEXT PC 4C00 0100 This line indicates that WordStar resides in hexadecimal locations 0100 to 4C00. 4C hexadecimal equals 76 decimal. This number is used later in the SAVE command. -S3F1C The hyphen is the DDT prompt. 3F 1C 0E 0D 0D is ASCII for carriage return. It replaces the instruction 0E. 3F 1D 20 0A 0A is linefeed. 3F 1E 54 0A 3F 1F 68 00 3F 20 69 . The period ends the input of data. -S3CF4 3C F4 CD 00 3C F5 2A 00 3C F6 1B 00 3C F7 CD 00 3C F8 3F 00 3C F9 25 00 3C FA CD 00 3C FB E5 00 3C FC 3D 00 3C FD 21 00 3C FE 02 00 3C FF 00 00 3C 00 CD 00 3C 01 98 00 3C 02 21 00 3C 03 21 . -S3CE8 3C E8 CD 00 3C E9 E5 00 3C EA 3D 00 3C EB 21 . -^C Type Control C to end things. A>SAVE 76 WS.COM This saves the modifications, reserving 76 blocks on the diskette for WS.COM. That's all there is to it! By following these instructions, you should save yourself a few seconds every time you boot up WordStar! If you've done the above modification to WordStar, you might like to try the following modifications which I've tried on WordStar 3.1. Much of this information was found in a book on WordStar patches for the IBM PC. The memory locations of the commands are generally the same as for those on an Apple. The following modifications, using DDT.COM will modify WordStar such that the keys =, [, ], \, /, ` and ~ act as function keys. Some functions are used often when word processing. By making these modifications, one can get the same effect by pressing one key rather than the two or three keys that are normally required. One other modification that we'll make is to the ruler line. The ruler line will only show one tab stop, since no one uses all those tab stops anyway, and its such a pain to type ^ON just to eliminate them. Be aware though, that once these modifications are made, the keys that are used no longer work as they originally did. Keep a copy of the old WordStar, just for those times when you need to type out an equal sign or a left bracket. I'll be assuming that you have some familiarity with using DDT.COM. Before we begin, just a few words of explanation. Typing ^QR places the cursor at the beginning of a file. As you probably know, ^Q has as its hexadecimal equivalent 11 and ^R has as it hexadecimal equivalent 12. The hexadecimal equivalent of an equal sign is 3D. Now to begin. Instruction Remarks 1. Copy DDT.COM onto the DDT.COM is the program that will disk with WS.COM help do the modifications. 2. At the CP/M A prompt, DDT will show on the screen: type DDT WS.COM DDT VER 2.2 NEXT PC 4300 0100 3. At the hyphen prompt, The S stands for "Set". type S4F9 and press It will show the memory location the carriage return 4F9 and just to the right of it, an 11. 4. Press carriage return This moves to the next memory again. location. You should see 12 this time. 11 and 12 are the hexadecimal equivalents of Control QR, or ^QR in short form. 5. Type a period (.) This will allow us to do something else. 6. Type S4F9 This will show the contents at the original location. 7. Type 3D and carriage We are replacing ^Q with the hex return. equivalent of an equal sign. 8. Type 00 and carriage 00 replaces the hex equivalent of return. ^R. ^QR actually means ^Q^R. 9. Type a period (.) This ends data entry. The above instructions show how to replace the WordStar instruction ^QR with an equal sign, so that hitting the equal sign gets the same effect that ^QR use to do. Now for the other modifications. Listed below are the original instructions, the new instructions and the hexadecimal locations that the original instructions are located at. Hexadecimal equivalents are in brackets. We've done the first modification above. ORIGINAL INSTRUCTION NEW INSTRUCTION LOCATION ^QR(11,12) =(3D,00) 4F9,4FA ^KS(0B,13) ^QP(11,50) `(60,00) ~(7E,00) 5B9,5BA 4C9,4CA ^QA(11,01) \(5C,00) 505,506 ^QS(11,13) [(5B,00) 4B1,4B2 ^QD(11,04) ](5D,00) 4B5,4B6 ^QC(11,03) /(2F,00) 4FD,4FE ^Qbs(11,7F) ^[(1B,00) 539,53A ^QY(11,19) ^](1D,00) 541,542 The last two lines require a bit of explanation. Control Qbs normally deletes the text to the left of the cursor and Control QY normally deletes text to the right of the cursor. With our modifications, Control [ and Control ] now perform the equivalent functions. Much more sensible than Control Qbs and Control QY! I've selected keys that I normally don't use much in my word processing. You may decide to pick other keys to perform the above instructions. If you do you'll have to look up the keys in an ASCII table. Now to fix the ruler line. Type DDT WS.COM and when you see the hyphen prompt, type D3440,3470 . You should see a pattern that looks like this: 00 00 01 00 00 10 00 01 00 00 10 The zeros indicate locations with no tabs and the ones indicate where the tabs are located. To set your tabs where you want them, use the SET command to place ones where you want tabs. If you only wanted a tab at column 6, then leave the first 1 alone and put a 0 everywhere you see a 1. When finished with entering the modifications, type ^C and when you get back to the CP/M prompt, type SAVE 67 WS.COM. Happy hacking!