functions would handle screen or keyboard I/O first and then pass them to the BIOS). The first DOS version of WordStar, demoed by Jim Fox and executed by a team of Irish programmers in April 1982, was a port of the CP/M-86 version of WordStar, which in turn had been ported from the CP/M-80 version in September 1981. This had been started by Diane Hajicek and was completed by an Irish team of programmers under ISIS-II, probably using Intel's source-to-source translator CONV86. Thus the main program executable was a .COM file which could only access 64 kB of memory. Users quickly learned they could make WordStar run dramatically faster by installing a RAM disk board, and copying the WordStar program files into it. WordStar would still access the "disk" repeatedly, but the far faster access of the RAM drive compared to a floppy disk yielded a substantial speed improvement. However, edited versions of a document were "saved" only to this RAM disk, and had to be copied to physical media before rebooting. InfoWorld described WordStar as "notorious for its complexity", but by 1983 it was the leading word processing system. Although competition appeared early (the first version of WordPerfect debuted in 1982 and Microsoft Word in 1983), WordStar was the dominant word processor on x86 machines until 1985. It was part of the software bundle that accompanied Kaypro computers. At that time, the evolution from CP/M to MS-DOS, with an "Alt" key, had taken place. WordStar had until then never successfully exploited the MS-DOS keyboard, and that is one explanation for its demise. By that point, MicroPro had dropped the generic MS-DOS support and WordStar 4.0 was exclusively for IBM compatibles, which differed from MS-DOS-compatible programs in terms of screen addressing. It was the first version of WordStar supporting directories—a feature nearly mandatory to be usable on machines with hard disks. Also introduced were simple macros (shorthand) and the install program was completely updated to include features like reprogramming function keys and an extensive printer support. During the second half of the 1980s, the fully modernized WordPerfect overtook it in sales. WordStar 5 (released in 1989) added footnote and endnote capability and a fairly advanced Page preview function. Versions 5.5 and 6 had added features, and version 7 (released 1991) included a complete macro language as well as support for over 500 printers. It also featured style sheets and mouse