Bruce Bastian, WordPerfect co-creator, has died

My first computer [1] didn't have Microsoft Word on it, but it had WordPerfect installed with the OEM Windows. I've always had really horrid handwriting so I preferred to type out all my homework since I was twelve or so, so I had to use whatever I could to do so, and WordPerfect was there.

I grew to actually really like it, and I used it for about two years until my hard drive crashed, I had to reinstall Windows, and then I installed StarOffice (which Google was giving away for free from Google Pack or something like that).

Still, I liked WordPerfect, and looking at the history it seems like it was actually quite significant; a part of me feels like it should have been the de facto word processor instead of Word.

[1] Not counting the hand me down Commodore 64 I got as a pretty young kid.

http://www.wordplace.com/ap/almostperfect.pdf

But what struck me reading this obituary is that he was a graduate of Brigham Young University, lived in Utah, and was a strong LGTBQ+ advocate, appearing to be a member of that community himself. I can't imagine that was easy, especially in the past (googling shows it is still condemned by the LDS church today) and he seems to have tackled it through very strong philanthropy and support.

Kudos. Kindness and support for those who need it is a greater legacy than any technology.

I wasn’t out as gay yet, maybe only 15 years old. Of course, it would have been a death sentence for a teenager in Southern Idaho to come out as gay. One day though, Mike told me “You know, you can grow up here and you can be /different/ in many different kinds of ways, you can be a band nerd, a guy who writes software, you can be gay, you can be /yourself/ and no matter what some adults might tell you right now, you will be okay. Not only okay, but you can live a fulfilled and successful life while being authentic and true to yourself. You are never the person that these adults claim you are. They don’t know anything.“ He then went on to tell me Bruce’s story and how in his opinion, of course, Bruce wasn’t “evil” or “wrong” for being gay.

In 2005, I wrote my technology teacher a personal thank you letter. I wrote one to Bruce as well and I asked if it could be shared with him.

Bruce took the time to respond:

  Dear Brian,
  Thank you for taking the time to write your letter.  I was very moved by your story.  There were parts that really reminded me of some of my own experiences in life.
  The beautiful thing about life, at least as I have seen it, is that if you keep trying and never doubt yourself, you really can make amazing things happen both in yourself and in the world around you.  I am sure you too have already touched many people around you and have been a positive influence for them. That's so very important.  You may never realize the good you are doing, but it is happening.
  Being gay is becoming more and more accepted as "normal" and one day maybe it just won't matter.  As for being a geek, I don't consider that a bad term.  The world needs geeks.  But then they need gays too!
  Thanks again,
  Bruce Bastian

Related (from Wikipedia references):

https://www.deseret.com/utah/2024/06/17/word-perfect-co-foun...

https://www.fox13now.com/news/local-news/bruce-bastian-co-fo...

https://www.hrc.org/press-releases/human-rights-campaign-mou...

Famous for supporting every printer manufactured on planet Earth - 3 disks of printer drivers.

Afaik it was written in assembler hence the tough time when they needed to move to more modern OS/2 with Presentation Manager and then later Windows 3.

I remember it took a LONG time before there was a Windows version of WordPerfect which I think took a lot of their momentum away. Combine that with Microsoft basically giving away Office or bundling Word+Excel they succeeded in eroding market share from Lotus / WordPerfect.

I think the Lotus Suite may have even pre-dated MSFT Office as a suite (not 100% certain) and as usual functionality was often superior or better implemented than MSFT's.

Credit should also go to WordPerfect for making a Linux version in the 2000's before Linux desktop was as mature as it is today. Sadly they didn't continue this effort.

I'm glad we have LibreOffice but it's frankly a clone of MSFT Office, the UI is very cluttered and it has the same "weirdisms" that Office has.

By the time I moved to PCs I could use Windows 3.x and MS Word, so I lived through college in the late 80s and early 90s without ever using WP. But I still learned to understand the meaning, reason and power of reveal codes.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/1z0AEyFvPN30WFbQc317T6

Anyway, I wasn't aware of Bruce Bastian specifically but the Mormon/LGBT angle stands out. It must have taken a lot of character to be out so publicly in that community.

(The LDS church's response to legalization of gay marriage was to excommunicate anyone who got married to someone of the same sex, and to bar their children from baptism and advancement unless they disavowed their parents' relationship. The policy was rescinded in 2019. In earlier times one could get excommunicated simply for _being_ gay.)

It looks like Bruce and his husband made some appearances on Mormon Stories podcast if you want some inside baseball: https://www.mormonstories.org/?s=bruce+bastian

I had an old, bulky laptop, Windows 3.11, and then WordPerfect 6. Of course, everything had to be installed from disk.

This was my technically totally limited writing setup, however I was very productive with it and enjoyed the setup.

Even on Windows 95, WordPerfect was my tool of choice. MS Word overtook only because WP crashed too often and the beneficial Grammar tool was lagging behind.

I felt sad the moment I had to let go of WP. Even thinking about it today feels crazy. I never ever again felt an emotional rift after switching to another tool. It was only this one time with WP.

I think Corel bought WP and somewhat tried to revive WP, but this came too late.

When Windows got to be a thing, my law firm considered switching to WP for Windows because WP 5.1 for DOS was the unquestioned industry standard for lawyers. But we surveyed our clients (almost all of them were big companies) and learned that they were going over to Word for Windows. So we said, "who gives a [hoot] what other law firms are using" and switched to Word for Windows. It was more than a bit of a downgrade from WP 5.1 in DOS

Your changes have been saved, Bruce. RIP

Good times. http://xahlee.info/kbd/wordperfect_shortcuts_strip.html

Others have posted their favorite shortcuts (and Reveal Codes truly was magical); my most used ones I haven't seen mentioned were Ctrl+Shift+F1 and Alt+Shift+F1. IIRC, those were spell check and thesaurus, respectively.

RIP Bruce, you made the world a better place for millions.

I preferred runoff/[t]roff and vi

It does appear to be a better article though, so if someone finds a link that people can actually read, we can swap it back.