Fortran Coding Form Pads... - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

1 Aug 2002

Speaking of odd screen widths, the Osborne I was 52 characters wide. With
the 80-column upgrade, you could also get 104 characters on the Osborne's
tiny screen. (Using 60-character lines in WordStar, the screen would
jump-scroll whenever you reached the last part of a line -- a rea PITA.
Until I got the 80-column upgrade, I would write using a 50-character line
and reformat to 60 before printing.) 

-----Original Message-----
From: ard(a)p850ug1.demon.co.uk [mailto:ard@p850ug1.demon.co.uk]
Sent: Thursday, August 01, 2002 6:19 PM
To: cctalk(a)classiccmp.org
Subject: Re: Fortran Coding Form Pads...

...

 Certainly, screen dimensions were modelled after punched cards: There
 were 80 columns on a punched card, and once everybody was used to that
 line length, it was an obvious choice to make the screen just as wide -
 except for a couple of clever guys who made the screen 64 columns wide,
 which happens to be a power of two. 
I've seen 132 column screens too (why 132???) but did anyone ever try to 
make a 128 column screen (or printer)? It would seem to be a logical size 
to make it, but I've never seen one.

-tony