20 Goto 10 by Steven Goodwin

Author:Steven Goodwin [Goodwin, Steven]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781800182752
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2023-09-06T00:00:00+00:00

80 : Columns

The mark of a high-end computer was the quality of its text output. The 22 columns of a VIC-20 were clearly a toy when compared to the 32 characters of the Spectrum or the 40 of the Commodore 64. Both, in turn, looked paltry compared to mode 0 on the BBC Micro, which had 80. For 80 characters is what you needed for quality word processing. It’s a number which originates with the punched cards that IBM introduced in 1928 because 80 holes could be reliably punched (and read) on the size of cards that Herman Hollerith, the statistician and inventor, had previously used to collate the 1890 US Census results. Hollerith chose the size to be 3¼ x 7⅜ inches, to match the US currency of the time, so that they could be stored in drawers that already existed and were in use by banks.

The 80 column editors are still the standard and originate from here.

And it has more truth than the idea that the space shuttle was designed with the size of a horse’s ass in mind!

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