Game of Thrones author George RR Martin still uses DOS
The bestselling fantasy novelist George RR Martin writes his books on an ancient MS-DOS computer.
Speaking on late-night US chat show Conan, the author told host O’Brien that he likes using the out-of-date operating system because it does not correct his spelling, according to the BBC.
“I actually have two computers,” Martin said. “I have the computer that I browse the internet with, and that I get my email on, and that I do my taxes on, and that computer. And then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine, not connected to the internet.
“Remember DOS? I use WordStar 4.0 as my word-processing system. I actually like it. I mean, it does everything I want a word processing program to do, and it doesn’t do anything else.
“I don’t want any help, you know. I hate some of these modern systems, where you type a lowercase letter, and it becomes a capital. I don’t want a capital. If I wanted a capital, I would’ve typed a capital. I know how to work the Shift key.”
And here’s a fact for the curious: WordStar 4.0 was released in 1987. DOS, which was first released in 1981, had a command-line interface requiring users to enter orders rather than open programs on a desktop.
