WasPerfect 5.1 The greatest word processor of 1989. Now on iPad.
A faithful, from-scratch recreation of the legendary blue-screen
DOS word processor — the function-key template, Reveal Codes, the
Doc 1 Pg 1 Ln 1" Pos 1" status line —
running native on iPad, with iCloud Drive and a live print preview.
Download on theApp Store
No emulation — 100% native No subscription No accounts Zero data collection No internet needed Works with or without a real keyboard
Why bring it back?
Because it got the important things right: one document, one screen, zero chrome — and every command one function key away. Nobody reached for a mouse. Millions carried the whole command set in their fingers — Shift-F7 printed, F10 saved, F3 helped — and by 1990, seven of every ten American law firms ran on it.
It didn't lose to a better word processor — it stopped being itself. When Windows arrived, the company chased Word with a port that shipped two years late: slow, buggy, and mouse-first. The fastest writing machine of its era became just another window, and the keyboard-first word processor left the market. Until now — on the one device that never belonged to the mouse anyway.
WasPerfect rebuilds that machine from scratch: not an emulator, not a skin, but a native iPad app where every keystroke, every menu and every beep behaves exactly as it did in 1989. It opens the era's plain-text format and writes Markdown, HTML and RTF like it was born in this decade — because it was.
And if you never used the original: this is the most distraction-free writing environment ever shipped. Every "focus mode" of the last forty years has been trying to get back to this screen.
What you get
F6 The Blue Screen
80 columns of pure focus. The authentic bitmap font, the pull-down menus with red mnemonics, the status line that speaks in inches. No toolbars. No ribbon. No mercy.
F1–F12 The Function-Key Template
The complete Ctrl / Shift / Alt / plain grid — Cancel, Search, Help, Block, Bold, Exit, Save — as an on-screen template bar, and on your hardware keyboard.
Alt-F3 Reveal Codes
The killer feature, alive again: split the screen and see every formatting code exactly where it lives. Your document has no secrets.
Cmd-P Live Print Preview
A real page, in real type, updating as you write. Portrait: below. Landscape: beside. The layout engine wraps with genuine printer metrics.
F5 Files & iCloud Drive
Documents live in iCloud Drive and the Files app. List Files works like it always did — plus your .wp files are plain text, and Markdown, HTML and RTF convert on save.
Ctrl-F2 The Full Toolkit
Spell check, thesaurus, macros, merge, tables, columns, footnotes, equations — the deep cuts are here. Offline, private, no accounts, no subscription.
The template. The card that lived above your F-keys — Ctrl in red, Alt in blue, Shift in green. Every command of it, in the app, on screen or on your keyboard.
For the best experience, connect a Bluetooth or USB keyboard — the F-keys, Ctrl, Shift and Alt work exactly as printed above, and the on-screen template tucks itself away.
See it
Radically private
WasPerfect collects nothing. No analytics, no crash reports, no telemetry, no third-party SDKs — the app makes no network requests of its own, ever. There is nothing to opt out of, because there is nothing to opt into.
It runs entirely on your iPad and never needs an internet connection — write on a plane, in a cabin, off the grid; every feature works identically. Your documents are plain files that belong to you: keep them in On My iPad and they never leave the device, or put them in your own iCloud Drive and the only thing that ever touches the network is Apple syncing your files — never us, because there is no us to sync to.
No accounts to create, no permission prompts — the app never asks for your camera, location, or contacts, because it has no use for them. In 1989 a word processor answered to the person at the keyboard. It still does.
Press kit
High-resolution screenshots (2752×2064 / 2064×2752, straight off the device, no compositing): landscape split · blue screen · reveal codes · help template
App icon (1024×1024): light · dark
| Name | WasPerfect |
| The original | WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS (November 1989) — the most successful version ever shipped: roughly 60% of the word-processing market, and 7 of 10 US law firms |
| What | A faithful recreation of the classic 1989 blue-screen DOS word processor — a native iPad app, no emulation |
| Platform | iPadOS 16 or later; works with hardware keyboards and the on-screen template bar |
| Formats | .wp (plain text with inline codes), Markdown, HTML, RTF, TXT; PDF output |
| Privacy | Zero data collection — no analytics, no telemetry, no third-party SDKs, no accounts. Runs entirely on-device; no internet connection required |
| Availability | Available now on the App Store |
| Contact | hello@dopecode.com |
F3 — Help
- Do I need a hardware keyboard?
- No — the function-key template lives on screen, every command is also in the pull-down menus, and text entry uses the normal iPad keyboard. But for the best experience, connect one: Bluetooth or USB both work, the F-keys, Ctrl, Shift and Alt land exactly as printed on the template — and this is a word processor from the age when hands never left the keyboard. That's the way to feel it.
- Is it an emulator?
- No. WasPerfect is a real iPad app, rebuilt from scratch to behave exactly like the original — the keys, the menus, the quirks. It launches instantly and runs at iPad speed, not 1989 speed.
- What about my modern files?
- Documents are plain text with inline codes, stored in iCloud Drive and visible in the Files app. Markdown, HTML, RTF and TXT convert on save, and print goes to PDF. Nothing is locked in.
- Does it phone home?
- Never. The app makes no network requests at all — no accounts, no analytics, no crash reporting, no subscription — and every feature works without an internet connection. Turn on airplane mode and nothing changes. You bought a word processor; it word-processes.
- Is this affiliated with WordPerfect?
- No — WasPerfect is an independent tribute, built from scratch. See the notice in the footer.
Exit WasPerfect?
Your desk in 1989 is one download away. The blue screen, the blinking cursor, and nothing else in the world.
Download on theApp Store
Save document? Yes (No)