Canadian sci-fi writer Robert J. Sawyer has re-released WordStar 7, the last official version of the venerable DOS word processor used by a slew of writers.

WordStar is used by George R. R. Martin, William F. Buckley, Jr, Ralph Ellison, Anne Rice, James Gunn, Michael Chabon, Arthur C. Clarke, and of course Sawyer, to name just a few. Unfortunately of its devoted users, WordStar’s last release was in 1992. Even worse, the company behind WordStar went out of business years ago, leaving the software’s future and ownership in question.

According to The Register, Sawyer has decided to take the risk and declare the software “abandonware,” re-releasing the last official version for free, along with all documentation and translation tools to convert the documentation to newer formats. Sawyer also incorporated two FOSS tools that will help users run WordStar on modern versions of Windows.

Sawyer describes the work he put into the project on his blog:

There was no proper archive of WordStar for DOS 7.0 available online, so I decided to create one. I’ve put weeks of work into this. Included are not only full installs of the program (as well as images of the installation disks), but also plug-and-play solutions for running WordStar for DOS 7.0 under Windows, and also complete full-text-searchable PDF versions of all seven manuals that came with WordStar — over a thousand pages of documentation.

I’ve also included lots of my own explanations on how to use and customize WordStar, many WordStar-related utility programs, and numerous other goodies.

WordStar became popular as a result of offering features and abilities that are ideally suited to a writer’s workflow. As word processors become more complex and generalized, most lost—or never had—these features, leaving writers hanging on to an abandoned program. Although there have been multiple attempts to create WordStar clones, none have matched the original.

Sawyer is aware there’s a legal risk to the action he’s taken, since “abandonware” is a descriptive term, not a legal one. Thankfully, it’s unlikely anyone will take any action against Sawyer, and the myriad of users who still rely on WordStar will hopefully be able to use the software for years to come.

Here’s the link to the full WordStar 7 archive, including releases for Linux, macOS, and Windows.