The 'Dune' Screenplay Was Written In MS-DOS (vice.com) 53
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Motherboard: Oscar winning Dune screenwriter Eric Roth banged out the screenplay using the MS-DOS program Movie Master. Roth writes everything using the 30-year-old software. "I work on an old computer program that's not in existence anymore," Roth said in an interview in 2014. "It's half superstition and half fear of change." Roth wrote the screenplay for Dune in 2018 and explained he was still using Movie Master on a Barstool Sports podcast in 2020. That means Dune was written in an MS-DOS program.
In the video, he pulled up a DOS window in Windows XP and booted up Movie Master 3.09 on an ancient beige mechanical keyboard. "So now I'm in DOS. Nobody can get on the internet and get this," Roth said. "I have to give them a hard copy. They have to scan it and then put it in their computers and then I have to work through their computer because you can't even email mine or anything. You can't get to it except where it is. It has 40 pages and it runs out of memory." [...] Roth also said the 40 page limit helps him structure his screenplays."I like it because it makes acts," he said. "I realize if I hadn't said it in 40 pages I'm starting to get in trouble." Another writer to use MS-DOS is George RR Martin, notes Motherboard. He apparently used MS-DOS program WordStar "to slowly write ever single Game of Thrones book."
In the video, he pulled up a DOS window in Windows XP and booted up Movie Master 3.09 on an ancient beige mechanical keyboard. "So now I'm in DOS. Nobody can get on the internet and get this," Roth said. "I have to give them a hard copy. They have to scan it and then put it in their computers and then I have to work through their computer because you can't even email mine or anything. You can't get to it except where it is. It has 40 pages and it runs out of memory." [...] Roth also said the 40 page limit helps him structure his screenplays."I like it because it makes acts," he said. "I realize if I hadn't said it in 40 pages I'm starting to get in trouble." Another writer to use MS-DOS is George RR Martin, notes Motherboard. He apparently used MS-DOS program WordStar "to slowly write ever single Game of Thrones book."
GoT ending (Score:5, Funny)
Well now I know why George RR Martin canâ(TM)t finish his books. He ran out of disk space.
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Well now I know why George RR Martin can't finish his books. He ran out of disk space.
Funny, but speaking of that, are there plans for someone to finish the series? Obviously, Martin won't be doing it.
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Should have used a C64 (Score:4, Funny)
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Not necessarily.
https://www.ebay.ca/itm/144252... [www.ebay.ca]
The issue is more about the typical breadbox keyboard being massively uncomfortable to type on for any length of time. The 64C is better, the SX-64 better yet, but a 128D has something close to a modern keyboard.
But memory is not an issue.
typewriter with macros (Score:4, Insightful)
Do we really need to live on a software update conveyor belt when it comes to primitive word processing? Film and theater scripts don't even need proportional fonts.
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Do we really need to live on a software update conveyor belt when it comes to primitive word processing? Film and theater scripts don't even need proportional fonts.
Correct, unless you want (or the studio forces you) to email them the script. Then, you will have to find a way to make your wordstar 4.1 or MovieMaster 3.09 to run in a modern machine with security patches and support, lest someone "can get on the inernet and get ot it".
But be warned, if you want to use old hardware with your old SW, you run the risk of the ever increasing posibility of HW failure, and all the intricacies of finding and configuring replacement HW. All the epochs have their problems, whethe
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He prints out a hard copy and the studio has to physically scan the paper.
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That is to say, this was before "pixel" was a word (or faxes)
The fax is significantly older than Tezuka. We were transmitting photographs good enough for newsprint by radio and telephone before he was born! It was perfectly ordinary by the time he had anything interesting to fax.
I have no idea why someone would tell you such a strange story.
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You are making it too hard.
Print file to a text file, then email that.
Clue: Old software supports text files (Score:3)
... unless you want (or the studio forces you) to email them the script ...
Decrepit old software like WordStar or MovieMaster are perfectly capable of generating a text file that can be emailed.
Clue: that's why you emulated on PowerPC (Score:3)
... the removal of 16 bit instructions in AMD-64 64bit processors modes (courtesy of AMD no less) ...
That's why you emulate the x86 software on a PowerPC based Mac, to ensure access to these nstructions.
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... the removal of 16 bit instructions in AMD-64 64bit processors modes (courtesy of AMD no less) ...
That's why you emulate the x86 software on a PowerPC based Mac, to ensure access to these nstructions.
SoftPC, baby!
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A movie is generally 3 acts, and a two hour movie is only between 160-200 page screenplay (usually around 180 pages).
So 40 pages is just enough to write through most of an act.
Something doesn't add up...
180 / 3 = 60
40 * 3 = 120
Maybe you're thinking of the popular modified 3 act structure where the second act split into two distinct halves. (Save the cat!) That could work as 40 * 4 = 160, but it's at the lower limit of your 160-200 page range. Using your numbers, the 40 page limit is, at best, barely adequate. Even then, it only works if each section is exactly 40 pages.
Re:typewriter with macros (Score:5, Funny)
Today you could just email the whole virtual machine running ms-dos and the MM software and the script itself - preserved as the author left it.
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Today you could just email the whole virtual machine running ms-dos and the MM software and the script itself - preserved as the author left it.
How many 5 1/4 inch floppies would you need to download "the whole virtual machine running ms-dos and the MM software and the script itself"?
Re:typewriter with macros (Score:5, Informative)
Eh, it takes a minute to install DOSBox on any modern OS. There will be zero fiddling required for a word processor, or 99% of software, only on super rare occasions for games. I run DOS apps in Linux, it's not a challenge and hasn't been for decades. Why this guy uses a decrepit WIndows XP PC, you'd have to ask him but probably some combination of ignorance and superstition.
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I hear you there, you can run old software in emulation in multiple ways and it's not hard. My old "retrocomputer" needs way too much TLC to keep running as components fail. (DolchPAC 65 "luggable", so non-standard PC parts that are cheaper to repair than to replace)
In the case of something like MovieMaster, I'd recommend vDos. Wordperfect and others run like a dream for me, and it supports printers. I once set up a chiropractor's office with vDos on Win8 so they could continue dot-matrix printing patient r
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I remember when Word for Windows came on 6 floppy disks.
Just a tool (Score:4, Insightful)
As long as he's keeping backups of his work, I see no problem.
Amazing Technology (Score:5, Insightful)
Presumably the original book was written on a typewriter. It might have even been a manual. Anything that will let you edit what you've typed on the screen is a quantum leap forward. Features added from there can make the results look nicer, but they aren't nearly the game changers that the clean backspace key and cut/paste were.
if it works, don't fix it (Score:5, Informative)
I became proficient at CP/M WordStar long ago. Worked just fine for basic document editing and you never suffered from the random reformatting that continues to afflict Microsoft Word forty years later.
On the other hand, WordStar 2000 was a gong show and I never touched the thing.
I guess I agree with Buckley about that. I'm about as keen on a new wave of keyboard assignments or ribbon bars as having someone randomly upgrade my alphabet.
Was Rice understood intuitively is that vampires are not the least bit keen on having their traditional alphabets randomly upgraded, many of whom continue to mourn the loss of their old azabercnageuua [wikipedia.org].
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Fictional vampire writer Anne Rice was another faithful user of WordStar ...
And here I thought she was a real person all this time. I'm gonna stick with comic books, vampire fiction is way too meta for me.
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Vampire fiction is the original writing that sucks.
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MS-DOS Celtex (Score:2)
I haven’t found a replacement yet for Celtex circa 2004
Its what I learned on, its integrated functions are not supportable in unix. And there’s no way back to monolithic source code.
I thought was news for nerds? (Score:2)
Only vi!!ian parts (Score:2)
are written in vi ;)
So loved being able to do ALL functions (search/copy/cut/paste/indent/ect) without ever moving fingers off of keyboard - so much faster than any of the "modern" GUI editors.
ESCwq!RETURN
Re:I thought was news for nerds? (Score:5, Funny)
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My father used to take me on Friday nights to the university so I could use the computer, back in 1983. Yes, the computer -- there were a couple of PCs around, but everybody prefered using the mincomputer (a Foonly F2) in the terminal room. I was eight years old.
He taught me how to write in Emacs. What did I write back then? TeX, of course. No, not LaTeX, as Leslie Lamport had not yet published it -- It was just TeX, installed by Donald Knuth in person, on his visit to Mexico in 1977.
Cue to 2021. 38 years l
False sense of security (Score:5, Informative)
So now I'm in DOS. Nobody can get on the internet and get this
That has nothing to do with anything. It's still part of the same filesystem that XP is using. If XP has internet connectivity then the files are as vulnerable as anything else in XP. Now if the computer ONLY had DOS, that's a different story. I think he may have a false sense of security here.
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He doesn't have a Page 41 and he doesn't have a removable drive.
Get this man a USB floppy drive at least, good god.
RS-232 serial / USB adapter (Score:3)
Get this man a USB floppy drive at least, good god.
And a RS-232 serial / USB adapter
Re: False sense of security (Score:2)
Maybe, but then he could do that with a modern computer. Many motherboards donâ(TM)t have built-in WiFi and in many of the ones that do have it, it can be disabled easily.
findstr /s truth (Score:2)
Made some money converting formats (Score:5, Interesting)
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Ancient software can run on modern hardware, you k (Score:4, Informative)
I definitely share the sentiment that some software was perfected in the '90s (and early aughts) and that more modern versions are just distracting--my photo editor of choice is Photoshop 7.0, I use InDesign CS2 for posters and flyers, and my most played games are SimCity 2000, EGATrek, Homeworld and Tyrian-- but I gotta say, I don't miss the days of CRT screens, Blue Screens of Death and corrupted diskettes. Luckily, emulators, virtual machines and WINE have made it EASIER to run my favorite software, on any platform (including my phone or a $50 Raspberry Pi) while enjoying modern innovations like automated backups / cross-platform data syncing, environment isolation, IPS/OLED displays and wireless peripherals.
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Even better it opens up software libraries of operating systems most haven't even heard about like BeOS.
Things more capable than MS-DOS prohibited (Score:5, Funny)
The headline is a lie (Score:4, Informative)
Just RTFS. It was written in Windows XP.
I Still use a C64 Program to track my finances. (Score:2)
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I remember writing BALANCE.BAS in BASICA (yes, I cut my BASIC teeth on a PC, not on a C64) somewhat over 35 years ago.
Now, are your finances as complicated as they were back then?
Very impressive! (Score:2)
"I work on an old computer program that's not in existence anymore,"
It's one thing to use a computer program that is no longer developed or supported, but to use a program that doesn't even exist? Now that's impressive!