4 ms·
There are actually deeper reasons for these limits. Text typically gets broken into multiple columns when it would be over about 70 characters long, because rea
by solidsnack9000 7y ago
There are actually deeper reasons for these limits. Text typically gets broken into multiple columns when it would be over about 70 characters long, because reading long lines is uncomfortable.
Many people talk about the 80 column rule as reflecting some technical limitation due to the antiquated punch cards — but they could certainly have made wider punchcards if they wanted to.
- eesmith 7y agoThose who refer to it as a technical limitation are almost certainly wrong. Remington-Rand released a 90-column punched cards, for example, two years after the famous 80-column IBM card. But IBM equipment dominated the market, and their cards became "standard." https://historyofpunchcards.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/rivalry-remington-rand-vs-ibm/ https://historyofpunchcards.wordpress.com/2014/03/24/rivalry... Eg, Univac used the 90-column format. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#Powers/Remington_Rand_UNIVAC_90-column_punched_card_format https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card#Powers/Remington_... FWIW, the recommendation of 72 characters seems much more a programming standard than a general readability standard. For example, quoting from https://www.viget.com/articles/the-line-length-misconception/ https://www.viget.com/articles/the-line-length-misconception... quoting from "Bringhurst's authoritative The Elements of Typographic Style". > Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely-regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal
- oblio 7y agoCode is - text wise - not as dense as prose. There's usually a lot more special characters and white space. I don't think rules for prose apply here.