While many of us can’t imagine composing a single sentence without the help of modern spell check technology, A Song of Ice And Fire author George R.R. Martin actively avoids it.

In fact, he recently revealed to Conan O’Brien that he constructs the world of Westeros on a DOS machine, using WordStar 4.0.

Yeah, GRRM is old school.

Well, at least when it comes to writing epic fantasy novels.

“I actually have two computers,” he said. “I have the computer that I browse the internet with, and I get my email on, and then I do my taxes on…and then I have my writing computer, which is a DOS machine. I use WordStar 4.0 as my word processing system.”

“I actually like it,” he continued. “It does everything I want a word processing program to do and it doesn’t do anything else.”

GRRM has a point. If you’re writing 1000-page novels filled with character names like Daenerys Targaryen, do you really want Google Docs trying to help?

So, WordStar 4.0 huh. Something about writing on that cold, black screen makes it seem even more cruel when GRRM kills off your favorite character. Everything is so bleak. All men must die, but 30-year-old word processors can live forever.

Image via Wikimedia Commons