[TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature

[Stephen Clark]

On 11/6/20 12:13 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:
> I’m going to chime in on pro-80-columns here, because with the text a comfortable size to read (although this is getting less true as my eyes age), I can read an entire 80-column line without having to sweep my eyes back and forth.
>
> I can’t, and never could, do that at 132.
>
> As a consequence, I read much, much faster with 80-column-ish text blocks.
>
> I also think there is something to the “UNIX is verbal” and “UNIX nerds tend to be polyglots often with a surprising amount of liberal arts background of one kind or another,” argument.  That may, however, merely be confirmation bias.
>
> Adam
May have had to do with the first terminal commonly used with UNIX.

The Model 33 printed on 8.5-inch (220 mm) wide paper, supplied on continuous 
5-inch (130 mm) diameter rolls and fed via friction (instead of, e.g., tractor 
feed). It printed at a fixed 10 characters per inch, and supported 74-character 
lines,[13] although 72 characters is often commonly stated.