in reply to increase default code-len window

I would wager that a significant portion of "programmers" today (especially those who do not code in Perl or C on a *nix platform) have no idea why 80 columns is a magic number. (Hint: it is not because of the VT100 terminal.)

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Re^2: increase default code-len window
by QM (Parson) on Sep 20, 2013 at 13:49 UTC
    Could it possibly be due to punch cards? Or did Fortran precede punch cards?

    -QM
    --
    Quantum Mechanics: The dreams stuff is made of

      Yes, FORTRAN (introduced in 1957) was originally written on 80-column punch cards:

      Before the development of disk files, text editors and terminals, programs were most often entered on a keypunch keyboard onto 80 column punched cards, one line to a card. The resulting deck of cards would be fed into a card reader to be compiled....
      Originally Fortran programs were written in a fixed column format.... the card was divided into four fields. Columns 1 to 5 were the label field: a sequence of digits here was taken as a label for the purpose of a GOTO or a FORMAT reference in a WRITE or READ statement. Column 6 was a continuation field: a non-blank character here caused the card to be taken as a continuation of the statement on the previous card. Columns 7 to 72 served as the statement field. Columns 73 to 80 were ignored, so they could be used for identification information.
      Wikipedia, “Fortran”

      So,

      A legacy of the 80 column punched card format is that a display of 80 characters per row was a common choice in the design of character-based terminals.
      Wikipedia, “Punched_card”

      See also Wikipedia, “Characters per line”.

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