'Dune' 2021 was written entirely within an MS-DOS program. Probably.

Frank Herbert’s Dune universe might be set roughly 20,000 years in the future, but its most recent film incarnation was almost certainly created using one of the most rudimentary programs available.

As Vice extrapolates from a 2020 interview with Barstool Sports (ew), screenwriter Eric Roth explains that he still relies on a 30-year-old MS-DOS word processor for all his movie projects, and in a separate interview video from 2014, he can be seen booting up a PC using Windows XP to load Movie Maker 3.09. “I work on an old computer program that’s not in existence anymore. It’s half superstition and half fear of change,” he can be heard saying. Roth confirmed to Barstool Sports last year that he still uses the long-defunct program for writing and that the software is only capable of storing 40 pages of script at a time.

Given that he started working on Dune back in 2018, it stands to reason he typed out the 155-minute “Part One” on good ol’ Movie Maker. And you know what? We can’t blame him in the slightest... We hope Clippy is still rotting in Hell as we type.

Back-to-basics for all of us — To be honest, retro word processors are looking more and more appealing as our smart tech continues to interconnect and overcomplicate our lives. For simplifying your smart devices, we highly recommend software like Ulysses to help declutter your creative work environments.

To disconnect entirely from the all-seeing eyes of Alexa and Siri, you could also drop a little bit of cash on an actual, vintage standalone keyboard that’s long since been discontinued... such as this lovely little Alphasmart Neo2. Sure, it’s a bit of an extreme measure to take these days, but if it can help you write the next Dune, then why the hell not?