From: "Pat Farrell" <pfarrell@netcom.com>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 94 13:17:49 PST
To: cypherpunks@toad.com
Subject: Re: I Like ASCII, not MIME and Other Fancy Crap
Message-ID: <58413.pfarrell@netcom.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain


  tcmay@netcom.com (Timothy C. May)  writes:
> Oh, I'll go along with this. After all, this is partly why the terminal
> standard is about 80 columns (there may be some FORTRAN and CRT
> technology of the 1970s reasons as well).

Revisionist history!

CRT's were 80 columns because Hollerith cards were 80 columns. They had
been that size since the late 1800s.

70s compilers for Fortran and Cobol used the columns. Cobol had
A and B margins, Fortran had sequence numbers in columns 1 thru 6, and the
continuation column in 7. The compilers weren't changed just because
of a new fangled I/O device.

In the good old days, there were only two I/O sizes that counted,
80 and 132.

Pat

Pat Farrell      Grad Student                 pfarrell@cs.gmu.edu
Department of Computer Science    George Mason University, Fairfax, VA
Public key availble via finger          #include <standard.disclaimer>