WordStar nailed something we keep relearning: a tool with one job and a strong opinion about it beats a configurable everything-app for real work. No notifications, no panels, no 'while you're here' — just you and the text. I build small software, and the hard discipline isn't adding features, it's refusing them so the default stays out of the way. The nostalgia in these threads isn't really for the software, it's for that quiet.