[TUHS] 80 columns ...

[Andy Kosela]

On Wednesday, November 8, 2017, Arthur Krewat <krewat at kilonet.net> wrote:

> I too grew up on DecWriters writing MACRO-10 on TOPS-10 in high school. My
> favorite was the LA120 that I could change the character pitch and get 132
> columns on 8.5" paper when we ran out of the wide stuff.
>
> To this day, 80 columns just doesn't do it for me. I generally comment - a
> LOT - and in C the comments will stretch out past 80 columns easily.
>
> On 11/8/2017 5:17 PM, Grant Taylor via TUHS wrote:
>
>>
>> I do recall 80 column monitors, but I started on 132 column decwriter IIs
>>> and hence have never had sympathy for 80 columns. It's weird that so
>>>
>>
>> Interesting.  I wonder if that's where the 132 column (alternative)
>> standard came from.  I.e. XTerm's "Allow 80/132 Column Switching" option in
>> the VT Options menu.
>>
>
> VT100's had a 132 column mode. I wrote a terminal emulator for the IBM-XT
> circa 1985 to do 132 columns in it's highest-resolution. I couldn't take 80
> columns, even back then ;)
>

For me changing 80 columns and/or 8 character Tab is like trying to change
the value of Pi.  I consider those the holy rules you just don't change.

But I am probably in minority group these days as I still use a lot of old
school 80 columns VT terminals -- vt220 and vt320 are my personal favorites.

--Andy
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