In article <qkoao.53872$gq5.12...@hurricane>, "BartC" <ba...@freeuk.com> wrote:
> >> Remember, the old hardcopy terminals used to produce 132-character-wide > >> listings. > > > > Those of you who think "old hardcopy terminals" did 132 wide obviously > > don't remember the ASR-33 :-) > > ASR33s I think might have been 72 columns wide (and punched cards had a > similar restriction). Yeah, I was trying to remember if it was 72 or 80. Hmmm, looks like you're right, it *is* 72 (http://www.pdp8.net/asr33/asr33.shtml). Punched cards (at least the common ones used by an 029 or 129 punch machine) were 80 columns. The 72 column restriction was an artificial one imposed by some programming languages such as Fortran. Columns 73-80 could be used to punch a sequence number, so that if you dropped your deck, you could re-assemble it by running it through a card sorter. > However, lineprinter output was more likely to be 132 columns. Yeah, but I wouldn't call a line printer a "terminal". -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
