Re: OT: Flamebait: Text vs HTML email
On Thu, 2002-07-25 at 01:05, Osamu Aoki wrote:
> On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 02:24:03PM -0700, Craig Dickson wrote:
> > Ron Johnson wrote:
> >
> > > Please set your Mozilla "create email" window to wrap at
> > > column 72. That also is "standard". (So that multiple
> > > replies don't cause line to exceed column 72, I keep my
> > > lines to 65 columns, but that's just preference...)
> >
> > The point of limiting original text to 72 columns is that you can have a
> > few layers of reply text before the original gets pushed out past 80
> > columns. There's nothing at all objectionable about quoted lines being
> > longer than 72 columns; it's 80 columns that's the real limit, because
> > some people still read mail in 80-column console mode (or, as in my
> > case, an 80-column-wide xterm).
>
> YES, 72 columns has practical value for e-mail. But why not 71 nor 73?
>
> When I ponder where it came from, I can recall my old days of punching
> IBM main frame punch cards. 80 columns per card. Last 8 columns were
> reserved for serial card number (or line number) so I can drop card
> stack and still be able to sort them back to the original state.
>
> 72 = 80 - 8
>
> Usually FORTRAN program should fit in 72 column too.
>
> I think that affinity to 72 columns may come from these old computer
> habits. (DEC VT-100 terminal which LINUX console emulates is another
> example which has 80 column.)
Some thoughts...
ASCII terminals that didn't have an 80 column mode just didn't
survive.
Who wrote email on punch cards????
Setting the word wrap at 72 gives you 9 horizontal tab stops,
so maybe that made 72 a nice round number...
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| Ron Johnson, Jr. Home: ron.l.johnson@cox.net |
| Jefferson, LA USA |
| |
| "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment |
| by men of zeal, well-meaning, but without understanding." |
| Justice Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v US (1928) |
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