4 ms·

Any history lessons for why 72 characters is the line length limit? For compatibility with printers and old-school terminals, I thought a hard limit of less tha

Any history lessons for why 72 characters is the line length limit? For compatibility with printers and old-school terminals, I thought a hard limit of less than 80 characters per line was the necessary. This not the case? Or is the 72 character limit's significance for something different?

mhd 3y ago
You need to add room for potentially multiple levels of added quote marks.
noizejoy 3y ago
> Any history lessons for why 72 characters is the line length limit? I believe it was punched cards (80 columns total, but 8 of those generally used as sequence number). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punched_card