6 Nov
2020
6 Nov
'20
11:26 p.m.
On 11/6/20 12:13 PM, Adam Thornton wrote:
I’m going to chime in on pro-80-columns here, because
with the text a comfortable size to read (although this is getting less true as my eyes
age), I can read an entire 80-column line without having to sweep my eyes back and forth.
I can’t, and never could, do that at 132.
As a consequence, I read much, much faster with 80-column-ish text blocks.
I also think there is something to the “UNIX is verbal” and “UNIX nerds tend to be
polyglots often with a surprising amount of liberal arts background of one kind or
another,” argument. That may, however, merely be confirmation bias.
Adam
May have had to do with the first terminal commonly used with UNIX.
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.