Hello,
I don't know about VDE, but I've used WordStar on my PCW, and configured the system for the PCW, and not had any problems. Alt K X is the normal 'Save & Exit (backup)' command, which works fine. For me.
For simple text editing, I use ED80 as supplied with some of the HiSoft software (mainly the DevPack package). My copy of this has been substantially setup to use WS commands as well, and again Alt K X does the same job.
I understand that the Alt key usually does the same as Ctrl. The PCW manuals show the standard keyboard operations, and the chart for Alt + whatever show ^A or ^D etc for the alphabetic keys which is the normal representation for 'ctrl'.
I can recommend the ED80 program, which works very well. The prog is small, and written in assembly, so it's quite fast. All the keyboard functions can be user config, so my setup has some cursor codes changed from the WS norm to suit the PCW keyboard.
WS can be useful. ED80 loads the whole file into RAM, so the limit is about 45k, but if I need to edit or view something larger, then WS does the trick. Using non-document mode, of course!
Oh, when you say that WS hangs up, this could be nothing to do with WS as such, more something connected with the return to the command prompt. What sort of file were you editing? How was WS invoked. Need to check on quite a few things.
Geoff
Geoff