Re: [TUHS] The Elements Of Style: UNIX As Literature

[Stephen Clark <sclark46@earthlink.net>]

On 11/6/20 10:19 AM, Chris Torek wrote:
>>> I think you're jumping to conclusions. The importance of 80
>>> characters (for small values of 80) is that it's a comfortable text
>>> width for human eyes.
>> Exactly this.
> Yes -- this is the (or at least "an") argument for two-column text
> on wide (8.5x11 or A4, or larger) paper pages.
>
>> It's also why I'm fine with smaller screens, I tried the giant apple
>> displays and found that those required head movement along with eye
>> movement.
>> I'm lazy.
> I am too, but I still use a big screen: I just fit a lot of
> smaller windows in it. I'd like to have a literal wall screen,
> especially if I'm in an interior, windowless (as in physical glass
> windows) room, so that part of the wall could be a "window"
> showing a view "outside" (real time, or the ocean, or whatever)
> and other parts of the wall could be the text I'm working on/with,
> etc.
>
> (But I'll make do with these 27" 4k displays. :-) )
>
> Chris
Could the 72 characters come from the original terminal ASR 33 Teletype?

The Model 33 printed on 8.5-inch (220 mm) wide paper, supplied on continuous 
5-inch (130 mm) diameter rolls and fed via friction (instead of, e.g., tractor 
feed). It printed at a fixed 10 characters per inch, and supported 74-character 
lines,[13] although 72 characters is often commonly stated.

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