The theory was that fixed size FORTH blocks with 64 (or 40) columns forced you to factor your code into aesthetically pleasing little functions, but that was bullshit. 

Forth code needs stack comments on every line to be readable, and 40 columns makes that damn hard to do. (Here’s some dense under-commented RPN 6502 and Forth code I wrote for my 40-column Apple ][ Forth — this does RAM card bank switching and copying for saving and restoring lines of text for the SUPDUP line saving protocol %TDSAV %TDRES commands.)
HEX CREATE SETUP-LINE ASSEMBLER
  BOT LDA, N STA, BOT 1+ LDA, N 1+ STA,
  BOT 2+ LDY, SCR-LBASES ,Y LDA,
  N 2+ STA, SCR-HBASES ,Y LDA,
  N 3 + STA, SCR-WIDTH 1- # LDY, RTS,
CREATE RAMOFF ASSEMBLER
  0C0D2 LDA, CLI, POPTWO JMP,
CODE LINE! ( LINE ADDR --- )
  SETUP-LINE JSR, BEGIN,
    N 2+ )Y LDA, N )Y STA,
    DEY, 0< UNTIL, RAMOFF JMP, C;
CODE LINE@ ( LINE ADDR --- )
  SETUP-LINE JSR, BEGIN,
    N )Y LDA, N 2+ )Y STA,
    DEY, 0< UNTIL, RAMOFF JMP, C;

http://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/forth/supdup.f <http://www.donhopkins.com/home/archive/forth/supdup.f>

Check out Toffoli and Margolus’s eccentric right-justified indentation style! (This is a cellular automata rule definition for their CAM6 hardware.)

http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/tomt-cam-forth-scr.txt <http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/tomt-cam-forth-scr.txt>

http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/tomt-users-forth-scr.txt <http://www.donhopkins.com/home/code/tomt-users-forth-scr.txt>

( GASHV: horizontal/vertical gas with collisions)       24 LOAD
    ( rotate right/left depending on time phase; do collisions)
: RULE0      KC0 IF
            C0 ELSE
         T0 0= IF
          Y0 ELSE
          X0 THEN
               THEN ;
                                                        ( echo)

-Don


> On 9 Nov 2017, at 08:24, Lars Brinkhoff <lars at nocrew.org> wrote:
> 
> ron minnich wrote:
>> So, 80 column folks
> 
> And then there's old-school Forth style, where lines are limited to 64
> characters.

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