'Game of Thrones' Author George R.R. Martin: 'I AM A Dinosaur'
"Game of Thrones" famous author George R.R. Martin recently confessed in an interview, that he writes his best-selling novels using WordStar 4.0 on a DOS machine.
George R.R. Martin, in an interview with late-night talk-show host Conan O'Brien, said that he prefers to write his popular books on a DOS word processor instead of the modern laptop.
"I actually have two computers. I have a computer I browse the Internet with and I get my email on, and I do my taxes on," Martin told O'Brien. "Then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine, not connected to the Internet. I use WordStar 4.0 as my word processing system," the author added.
Martin then continued on to explain his reasons for his choice of technology. One being that he enjoys the simplicity of WordStar 4.0 and two he dislikes modern autocorrect and spellcheckers.
Scroll down for the interview video
He said he knows how to work the shift key, so if he wants a capital letter, then he would just type it. Martin likes the WordStar 4.0 because it does exactly what a word processing program should do and nothing else. According to Theverge, it was delightful hearing the fantasy author explain his reasons to O'Brien and the audience.
George R.R. Martin's revelation on the Conan O'Brien show is nothing new. Back in 2011, the author revealed his reliance on the "archaic" machine on his blog post. In that post he likened himself to a dinosaur, since he still uses an old DOS Machine running on WordStar 4.0 to write his novels. He had called the software very old but unsurpassed.
According to Theverge, Martin is not the only person to attempt to keep it simple. Many have already tried to make $1,000 computers perform similarly with minimalist text editors.
Cnet said George R.R. Martin's choice of using DOS is reassuring in a sense that, the author doesn't have to be worried about virus attacking his computer and most importantly, no hackers can get a glimpse of his next masterpiece.
While George R.R. Martin may be dependent on DOS and WordStar 4.0, his fans on the other hand, have some qualms about his method of writing. Below are comments from readers of Theverge.
SuperSteve9 - "One of his reasoning is automatic auto-correct. You can disable that feature. All his complaints about a modern word processing like what you would find in Word 2013 can be disabled."
funkyboot3 - "With a PC that old, you may not need to worry about viruses (not being connected to the net), but I'd be terrified about a component failing. I'm guessing that finding working parts could be a problem nowadays."
Malkmus - "I'm sure an old school writer like him keeps hard copies (i.e. print-outs) of everything, not just back-ups on his hard drive."