The VT100 actually supported both 132 characters and 80 characters per line, in a 9 x 10 and a 10 x 10 character matrix, respectively. (The character matrix in

The VT100 actually supported both 132 characters and 80 characters per line, in a 9 x 10 and a 10 x 10 character matrix, respectively. (The character matrix in ROM is just 8 x 10, but pixels are stretched horizontally before being displayed. The limiting factor here isn't resolution, but the signal response of the screen phosphor and the circuits involved in its activation. Therefor the horizontal pixel stretch in order to allow the phosphor to reach its maximum activation level. In fact, a monochrome CRT has just an even phosphor coating and there isn't such a thing as hardware pixels or a native resolution. However, if activation phases are too short to allow the phosphor to gain a suitable activation, the display will be dim in those regions and overall unbalanced in brightness.)