Reply to post: Re: 80 columns

BOFH: Putting the commitment into committee

handleoclast
Headmaster

Re: 80 columns

True but...

The reason for 80 columns on a punch card goes back to typographical design rules (which derive from experience of human perception). On a line of more than around 72 characters your eyes have difficulty tracking back to the start of the next line. Add in the 6 columns at the start used by Fortran for label and continuation fields and two for luck and you get 80.

A standard rule-of-thumb used by printers (the people, not the clackety machines) was "Two and a half alphabets." Because tracking problems don't suddenly happen at the 73rd character but tracking becomes progressively harder after around 65 characters and 72 is really pushing it (but OK if most lines are shorter).

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