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|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 283 responses total. |
rtg
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response 150 of 283:
| 
Feb 8 10:22 UTC 1999 |
WHy is 80 columns such a standard? A terminal could be made with just
about any line width, why did 80 evolve to be so common?
Possibly?
) mechanical teletypes which printed on 8.5 inch paper, at 10CPI?
) legacy Hollerith cards from the mainframe days of batch jobs?
WHy do we stick with the habit?
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davel
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response 151 of 283:
|
Feb 8 12:50 UTC 1999 |
Legacy systems.
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cmcgee
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response 152 of 283:
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Feb 8 13:21 UTC 1999 |
*grin*
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aruba
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response 153 of 283:
|
Feb 8 15:15 UTC 1999 |
I always thought it was because of punch cards.
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steve
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response 154 of 283:
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Feb 8 15:49 UTC 1999 |
It is.
Most terminal emulation software these days defaults to 80
characters. Probably the single most popular program used to
get to Grex these days, Windows 9x telnet, isn't very good about
changing its screen size.
|
mcnally
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response 155 of 283:
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Feb 8 18:26 UTC 1999 |
According to references I've seen to cognitive psychology studies
there's an effect that results in diminishing readability when line-length
gets too long (though that limit is somewhat more than 80 characters..)
I can't recall offhand at what point readability starts degrading
substantially but there *are* decent empirical reasons for not having
ultra-wide display terminals..
|
dang
|
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response 156 of 283:
|
Feb 8 21:24 UTC 1999 |
I run 160 character terminals on my linux system. it's great. :) It
isn't hard to read, so the limit must be greater than 160.
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danr
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response 157 of 283:
|
Feb 8 22:07 UTC 1999 |
I'd be interested in knowing the line length that the study came up with. My
guess is that the optimum line length would be less than 80 characters. The
reason newspapers and magazines print in columns is that it's supposed to make
them easier to read.
|
i
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response 158 of 283:
|
Feb 9 01:31 UTC 1999 |
Ultra-wide terminals are at their best when doing spreadsheets, database
work, programming (wrapped lines make source code much less readable), etc.
I wouldn't want to read much full-width straight text on one, but i suspect
that asking people what the best text column width for reading is would get
you a bell curve.
|
orinoco
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response 159 of 283:
|
Feb 9 01:38 UTC 1999 |
Books, too, tend to use columns less than 80 characters wide. I think the
standard printers use is something like 50-60 characters.
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mcnally
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response 160 of 283:
|
Feb 9 02:31 UTC 1999 |
I'll see if I can find a number in any of the human-factors design stuff
I've got (unfortunately I don't have much on hand..)
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tpryan
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response 161 of 283:
|
Feb 9 05:25 UTC 1999 |
I once had a typewritter that was extra-wide. It could handle
17" wide computer paper. Friend did not care for letters typed to
132 character standard.
I would guess 72 cols is one of the optimals. That leaves a
half inch margin on each side of the page.
For my gate options on M-net, I set the hotcol near 72. that's
the point where it word wraps. Grex gate does not seem to have same
option.
|
davel
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response 162 of 283:
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Feb 9 13:05 UTC 1999 |
I'd be very surprised if it didn't, and the man page lists it.
<tries it> Works fine for me.
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albaugh
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response 163 of 283:
|
Feb 9 16:20 UTC 1999 |
If you think *80* is "weird", how about 132 for line printer characters per
line (10cpi) ?! :-)
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aruba
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response 164 of 283:
|
Feb 9 20:54 UTC 1999 |
Well, 132 is twice 66, which is the number of lines of 12-point text which
will print on an 11-inch high sheet of paper.
|
russ
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|
response 165 of 283:
|
Feb 10 05:47 UTC 1999 |
Narrower columns are more readable for one simple reason:
the eye has a hard time following a line back to the opposite
margin if it is too long. If you have to keep searching up
and down for the next line every time your eye scans back,
it's going to give you a difficult time. If the long line is
also close to your face, the difference in distance between
the center and the ends may force your eye to refocus also.
Short columns can fit much or all of the text into the eye's
area of acute vision, so it's not going to cause this problem.
132-column paper is often divided into 1/2 inch segments of
natural and light green. This helps a lot with scanning.
Code typically has lots of white space (if properly formatted)
which also guides the eyes.
|
flem
|
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response 166 of 283:
|
Feb 10 15:23 UTC 1999 |
What little I know about "speed reading" suggests that you try to (as a
start) take in and understand one line (paragraph, page when you get
more accomplished at it) of text at a glance. I have occasionally been
able to do this for a while. It seems to me that this would be much
facilitated by shorter lines.
|
gull
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response 167 of 283:
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Feb 10 19:42 UTC 1999 |
I also find, when editing, that it takes an annoying amount of time to
cursor along long lines.
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albaugh
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response 168 of 283:
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Feb 10 23:31 UTC 1999 |
While I'll concede that 132 = 66 x 2 :-) I can't see how 11 inches down the
page at 6 lines per inch has anything to do with the *width* (or character
count) of a sheet of line printer paper (which is also 11 inches tall).
|
aruba
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response 169 of 283:
|
Feb 11 00:40 UTC 1999 |
Well, if your characters are twice as many dots high as they are wide, then
you need the same number of dots vertically as horizontally to fill up a page.
(I'm just free-associating here, I'll point out, lest anyone take this
seriously.)
|
remmers
|
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response 170 of 283:
|
Feb 11 14:34 UTC 1999 |
I picked about half a dozen books, technical and non-technical ones, and
did character counts of randomly selected lines. The results were
uniform: 70 characters per line, plus or minus 3 or 4 characters. So
that seems to be a standard in the publishing business.
I picked about half a dozen books, technical and non-technical
ones, and did character counts of randomly selected lines. The
results were uniform: 70 characters per line, plus or minus 3 or
4 characters. So that seems to be a standard in the publishing
business.
I picked about half a dozen books, technical and non-
technical ones, and did character counts of randomly
selected lines. The results were uniform: 70 characters
per line, plus or minus 3 or 4 characters. So that seems
to be a standard in the publishing business.
I picked about half a dozen books,
technical and non-technical ones, and
did character counts of randomly
selected lines. The results were uni-
form: 70 characters per line, plus or
minus 3 or 4 characters. So that seems
to be a standard in the publishing
business.
(Question: Which of these paragraphs formats makes the most comfortable
reading - 1, 2, 3, or 4?
Answer quickly, before somebody posts a Grex system problem! ;-)
|
jep
|
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response 171 of 283:
|
Feb 11 15:04 UTC 1999 |
The first one was easiest to read because it's the same width as all the
other messages I read on Grex.
|
rcurl
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response 172 of 283:
|
Feb 11 16:26 UTC 1999 |
The second was the most comfortable for me.
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steve
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response 173 of 283:
|
Feb 11 17:54 UTC 1999 |
the second
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cassia
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response 174 of 283:
|
Feb 11 20:50 UTC 1999 |
the second.
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