"Roy Smith" <r...@panix.com> wrote in message
news:roy-181632.07571818082...@news.panix.com...
In article <qkoao.53872$gq5.12...@hurricane>,
"BartC" <ba...@freeuk.com> wrote:
>> Remember, the old hardcopy terminals used to produce
>> 132-character-wide
>> listings.
>
> Those of you who think "old hardcopy terminals" did 132 wide obviously
> don't remember the ASR-33 :-)
ASR33s I think might have been 72 columns wide (and punched cards had a
similar restriction).
Yeah, I was trying to remember if it was 72 or 80. Hmmm, looks like
you're right, it *is* 72 (http://www.pdp8.net/asr33/asr33.shtml).
Punched cards (at least the common ones used by an 029 or 129 punch
machine) were 80 columns. The 72 column restriction was an artificial
one imposed by some programming languages such as Fortran. Columns
73-80 could be used to punch a sequence number, so that if you dropped
your deck, you could re-assemble it by running it through a card sorter.
I'm sure there was a continuation column too. That would mean long lines had
to be split up, but if the width was longer, that would not be necessary.
However, lineprinter output was more likely to be 132 columns.
Yeah, but I wouldn't call a line printer a "terminal".
Source code tended to be perused and marked up on a printout, then corrected
at a terminal. So the terminal's width was less important, until fast VDUs
came in then printouts were used less, and it made sense to adjust to common
25x80 displays.
(I tend to use 60x100 now, sometimes even wider; editing using 25x80 now is
like doing keyhole surgery...)
--
bartc
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