AFAIK, WordStar never ran directly on the Apple II. You must've had a CP/M card, probably the Microsoft Z-80 SoftCard. And I'll bet that 80 column card was a Videx. I eventually switched from WordStar to AppleWorks. Somehow, I never used Apple Writer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Z-80_SoftCard

https://www.wiseowl.com/articles/a2fpga-videx-01-the-card-th...

I remember being quite excited at moving from a DOS based word processor (Word Perfect) to a GUI based one (Word). It looked like a step up.

In retrospect the quality, quantity and look and feel of the documents I created remained exactly the same.

> I grew up using WordStar on the Apple ][.

I don't think you did. AFAIK it never ran directly on 6502.

Perhaps under CP/M using the Microsoft add-on card that DOS creator Tim Paterson designed for them?

> a green phosphor screen

In the spirit of emacs-v-vim, I have to come down in favor of that other phosphor color of those days, amber. Better contrast !!!

> leave it behind when GUIs were invented

GUIs were invented by the Xerox PARC team early 1970s, the IIc (I have one sitting on my desk :) was 1984. Totally beside your point so I apologize. I only mention it because PARC deserves a huge amount of credit.