You could break this up into two steps. The first is agreeing on a width limit, whatever that width might be. Such a limit might already be controversial but i

You could break this up into two steps. The first is agreeing on a width limit, whatever that width might be. Such a limit might already be controversial but it seems to make sense. The second is the question of what that width limit should be. There's a fun story about the with of our railway gauges and roads and Roman chariots that has the lovely quote that if you"...wonder what horse's ass came up with it, you may be exactly right." https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/ https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/railroad-gauge-chariots/ When it comes to an 80(ish) character limit, that does indeed come from old monitors, which took it from older line printers before them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A But it all goes back to Hollerith cards, which were invented in the late 19th century and used in a US census at around that time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card