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Why did line printers have 132 columns?
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From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
As I recall, 80 columns was because of those Fortran punch cards.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
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Wilson
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From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
As I recall, 80 columns was because of those Fortran punch cards.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
history
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
2
80 columns is also not a power of 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_per_line In computer technology, a line of an IBM punched card could consist of only 80 characters. The widespread computer terminals such as IBM 3270 followed this limitation, their monitors could show only 80 CPL (but with the various number of lines), though with some terminals this number was either reduced by half to 40 CPL, limited to 64 CPL... or optionally increased to 132 CPL (DEC VT100 family, with 14 lines). Such line lengths have been carried over into text modes of personal computers.
– UncleBod
34 mins ago
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up vote
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down vote
favorite
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
As I recall, 80 columns was because of those Fortran punch cards.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
history
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
As I recall, 80 columns was because of those Fortran punch cards.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
history
history
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
asked 1 hour ago
Wilson
8,791439109
8,791439109
2
80 columns is also not a power of 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_per_line In computer technology, a line of an IBM punched card could consist of only 80 characters. The widespread computer terminals such as IBM 3270 followed this limitation, their monitors could show only 80 CPL (but with the various number of lines), though with some terminals this number was either reduced by half to 40 CPL, limited to 64 CPL... or optionally increased to 132 CPL (DEC VT100 family, with 14 lines). Such line lengths have been carried over into text modes of personal computers.
– UncleBod
34 mins ago
add a comment |Â
2
80 columns is also not a power of 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_per_line In computer technology, a line of an IBM punched card could consist of only 80 characters. The widespread computer terminals such as IBM 3270 followed this limitation, their monitors could show only 80 CPL (but with the various number of lines), though with some terminals this number was either reduced by half to 40 CPL, limited to 64 CPL... or optionally increased to 132 CPL (DEC VT100 family, with 14 lines). Such line lengths have been carried over into text modes of personal computers.
– UncleBod
34 mins ago
2
2
80 columns is also not a power of 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_per_line In computer technology, a line of an IBM punched card could consist of only 80 characters. The widespread computer terminals such as IBM 3270 followed this limitation, their monitors could show only 80 CPL (but with the various number of lines), though with some terminals this number was either reduced by half to 40 CPL, limited to 64 CPL... or optionally increased to 132 CPL (DEC VT100 family, with 14 lines). Such line lengths have been carried over into text modes of personal computers.
– UncleBod
34 mins ago
80 columns is also not a power of 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_per_line In computer technology, a line of an IBM punched card could consist of only 80 characters. The widespread computer terminals such as IBM 3270 followed this limitation, their monitors could show only 80 CPL (but with the various number of lines), though with some terminals this number was either reduced by half to 40 CPL, limited to 64 CPL... or optionally increased to 132 CPL (DEC VT100 family, with 14 lines). Such line lengths have been carried over into text modes of personal computers.
– UncleBod
34 mins ago
add a comment |Â
2 Answers
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The United States has its own paper sizes, two of which are 11"x17" ('ledger/tabloid') and 8.5"x11" ('letter'), which are similar to A3 and A4 and have the same sort of predominance.
Early fixed-width font printers usually offered a 12 characters-per-inch typeface.
12*11 = 132; so 132 characters is the number you can fit on a landscape 'letter' page, or a portrait 'ledger' page.
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
1
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
4
down vote
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
The Paper format originally used for tabulating machines and font size. Define this. 132 characters fit well with 10 characters per inch printing on a 14 inch paper.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
As beeing developed way before the binary computer, powers of two are not related in any way.
In Detail:
It's about the paper.
It begins with tabulating typewriters. Most notably they carry a quite wide carriage able to hold paper of 18 or sometimes more inches wide. Classic (pre computer) ledger size (in the US *1) is 17 inches wide (*2). To place their tabulting machines into accounting business, similar forms had to be used.
Long story short(*3), the result was support for 10 characters per inch and 6 or 8 lines per inch, resulting in two paper formats based on a 'half ledger height' of 11 inch:
- 8,5 x 11 inch with 80 characters per line and 66/88 lines per page
- 14 x 11 inch with 132 characters per line and 66/88 Lines per page
plus a (later) 'condensed' format of
- 14 x 8.5 inch with 132 characters and 66 lines per page (only 8 lines per inch)
When computer came along, there printers where not only buld using the same components as tabulating printers, but more important had to adhere to this paper formats to be useful.
Minis (as the mentioned VT terminals) and micros just carried it on -again to make their output useful to the businesss they where ment to be sold to.
*2 European pre-DIN formats where similar, which openes the interesting notation that the printing press was already seting international standardsway before any standardisation organisation. Just not as systematic.
*2 - Or better most used was 17 x 22. Other common ledger sizes are, 17 x 28, 19 x 24, 24 x 38
*3 - There was much variation of character density and capability among eraly machines. For example a IBM 405 only handled 88 character per inch and a total of 88 print bars (positions).
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
add a comment |Â
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
2 Answers
2
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
active
oldest
votes
up vote
4
down vote
The United States has its own paper sizes, two of which are 11"x17" ('ledger/tabloid') and 8.5"x11" ('letter'), which are similar to A3 and A4 and have the same sort of predominance.
Early fixed-width font printers usually offered a 12 characters-per-inch typeface.
12*11 = 132; so 132 characters is the number you can fit on a landscape 'letter' page, or a portrait 'ledger' page.
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
1
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
4
down vote
The United States has its own paper sizes, two of which are 11"x17" ('ledger/tabloid') and 8.5"x11" ('letter'), which are similar to A3 and A4 and have the same sort of predominance.
Early fixed-width font printers usually offered a 12 characters-per-inch typeface.
12*11 = 132; so 132 characters is the number you can fit on a landscape 'letter' page, or a portrait 'ledger' page.
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
1
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
4
down vote
up vote
4
down vote
The United States has its own paper sizes, two of which are 11"x17" ('ledger/tabloid') and 8.5"x11" ('letter'), which are similar to A3 and A4 and have the same sort of predominance.
Early fixed-width font printers usually offered a 12 characters-per-inch typeface.
12*11 = 132; so 132 characters is the number you can fit on a landscape 'letter' page, or a portrait 'ledger' page.
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
The United States has its own paper sizes, two of which are 11"x17" ('ledger/tabloid') and 8.5"x11" ('letter'), which are similar to A3 and A4 and have the same sort of predominance.
Early fixed-width font printers usually offered a 12 characters-per-inch typeface.
12*11 = 132; so 132 characters is the number you can fit on a landscape 'letter' page, or a portrait 'ledger' page.
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
answered 37 mins ago
Tommy
12.5k13262
12.5k13262
1
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
add a comment |Â
1
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
1
1
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
Sorry, not realy, that's a hindsight based explanation :) Early printers where 10 characters per inch. 12 didn't show up until the late 20s.
– Raffzahn
22 mins ago
add a comment |Â
up vote
4
down vote
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
The Paper format originally used for tabulating machines and font size. Define this. 132 characters fit well with 10 characters per inch printing on a 14 inch paper.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
As beeing developed way before the binary computer, powers of two are not related in any way.
In Detail:
It's about the paper.
It begins with tabulating typewriters. Most notably they carry a quite wide carriage able to hold paper of 18 or sometimes more inches wide. Classic (pre computer) ledger size (in the US *1) is 17 inches wide (*2). To place their tabulting machines into accounting business, similar forms had to be used.
Long story short(*3), the result was support for 10 characters per inch and 6 or 8 lines per inch, resulting in two paper formats based on a 'half ledger height' of 11 inch:
- 8,5 x 11 inch with 80 characters per line and 66/88 lines per page
- 14 x 11 inch with 132 characters per line and 66/88 Lines per page
plus a (later) 'condensed' format of
- 14 x 8.5 inch with 132 characters and 66 lines per page (only 8 lines per inch)
When computer came along, there printers where not only buld using the same components as tabulating printers, but more important had to adhere to this paper formats to be useful.
Minis (as the mentioned VT terminals) and micros just carried it on -again to make their output useful to the businesss they where ment to be sold to.
*2 European pre-DIN formats where similar, which openes the interesting notation that the printing press was already seting international standardsway before any standardisation organisation. Just not as systematic.
*2 - Or better most used was 17 x 22. Other common ledger sizes are, 17 x 28, 19 x 24, 24 x 38
*3 - There was much variation of character density and capability among eraly machines. For example a IBM 405 only handled 88 character per inch and a total of 88 print bars (positions).
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
add a comment |Â
up vote
4
down vote
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
The Paper format originally used for tabulating machines and font size. Define this. 132 characters fit well with 10 characters per inch printing on a 14 inch paper.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
As beeing developed way before the binary computer, powers of two are not related in any way.
In Detail:
It's about the paper.
It begins with tabulating typewriters. Most notably they carry a quite wide carriage able to hold paper of 18 or sometimes more inches wide. Classic (pre computer) ledger size (in the US *1) is 17 inches wide (*2). To place their tabulting machines into accounting business, similar forms had to be used.
Long story short(*3), the result was support for 10 characters per inch and 6 or 8 lines per inch, resulting in two paper formats based on a 'half ledger height' of 11 inch:
- 8,5 x 11 inch with 80 characters per line and 66/88 lines per page
- 14 x 11 inch with 132 characters per line and 66/88 Lines per page
plus a (later) 'condensed' format of
- 14 x 8.5 inch with 132 characters and 66 lines per page (only 8 lines per inch)
When computer came along, there printers where not only buld using the same components as tabulating printers, but more important had to adhere to this paper formats to be useful.
Minis (as the mentioned VT terminals) and micros just carried it on -again to make their output useful to the businesss they where ment to be sold to.
*2 European pre-DIN formats where similar, which openes the interesting notation that the printing press was already seting international standardsway before any standardisation organisation. Just not as systematic.
*2 - Or better most used was 17 x 22. Other common ledger sizes are, 17 x 28, 19 x 24, 24 x 38
*3 - There was much variation of character density and capability among eraly machines. For example a IBM 405 only handled 88 character per inch and a total of 88 print bars (positions).
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
add a comment |Â
up vote
4
down vote
up vote
4
down vote
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
The Paper format originally used for tabulating machines and font size. Define this. 132 characters fit well with 10 characters per inch printing on a 14 inch paper.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
As beeing developed way before the binary computer, powers of two are not related in any way.
In Detail:
It's about the paper.
It begins with tabulating typewriters. Most notably they carry a quite wide carriage able to hold paper of 18 or sometimes more inches wide. Classic (pre computer) ledger size (in the US *1) is 17 inches wide (*2). To place their tabulting machines into accounting business, similar forms had to be used.
Long story short(*3), the result was support for 10 characters per inch and 6 or 8 lines per inch, resulting in two paper formats based on a 'half ledger height' of 11 inch:
- 8,5 x 11 inch with 80 characters per line and 66/88 lines per page
- 14 x 11 inch with 132 characters per line and 66/88 Lines per page
plus a (later) 'condensed' format of
- 14 x 8.5 inch with 132 characters and 66 lines per page (only 8 lines per inch)
When computer came along, there printers where not only buld using the same components as tabulating printers, but more important had to adhere to this paper formats to be useful.
Minis (as the mentioned VT terminals) and micros just carried it on -again to make their output useful to the businesss they where ment to be sold to.
*2 European pre-DIN formats where similar, which openes the interesting notation that the printing press was already seting international standardsway before any standardisation organisation. Just not as systematic.
*2 - Or better most used was 17 x 22. Other common ledger sizes are, 17 x 28, 19 x 24, 24 x 38
*3 - There was much variation of character density and capability among eraly machines. For example a IBM 405 only handled 88 character per inch and a total of 88 print bars (positions).
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
From what I read, most line printers have 132 columns. Also, the VT-220 and presumably other terminals may be switched between 80 columns (that's a usual width) and 132 columns.
The Paper format originally used for tabulating machines and font size. Define this. 132 characters fit well with 10 characters per inch printing on a 14 inch paper.
But what's special about 132? It's hardly more than 128, which has the advantage of being a power of 2.
As beeing developed way before the binary computer, powers of two are not related in any way.
In Detail:
It's about the paper.
It begins with tabulating typewriters. Most notably they carry a quite wide carriage able to hold paper of 18 or sometimes more inches wide. Classic (pre computer) ledger size (in the US *1) is 17 inches wide (*2). To place their tabulting machines into accounting business, similar forms had to be used.
Long story short(*3), the result was support for 10 characters per inch and 6 or 8 lines per inch, resulting in two paper formats based on a 'half ledger height' of 11 inch:
- 8,5 x 11 inch with 80 characters per line and 66/88 lines per page
- 14 x 11 inch with 132 characters per line and 66/88 Lines per page
plus a (later) 'condensed' format of
- 14 x 8.5 inch with 132 characters and 66 lines per page (only 8 lines per inch)
When computer came along, there printers where not only buld using the same components as tabulating printers, but more important had to adhere to this paper formats to be useful.
Minis (as the mentioned VT terminals) and micros just carried it on -again to make their output useful to the businesss they where ment to be sold to.
*2 European pre-DIN formats where similar, which openes the interesting notation that the printing press was already seting international standardsway before any standardisation organisation. Just not as systematic.
*2 - Or better most used was 17 x 22. Other common ledger sizes are, 17 x 28, 19 x 24, 24 x 38
*3 - There was much variation of character density and capability among eraly machines. For example a IBM 405 only handled 88 character per inch and a total of 88 print bars (positions).
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
edited 1 min ago
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
answered 23 mins ago
Raffzahn
36.2k479143
36.2k479143
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2
80 columns is also not a power of 2. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_per_line In computer technology, a line of an IBM punched card could consist of only 80 characters. The widespread computer terminals such as IBM 3270 followed this limitation, their monitors could show only 80 CPL (but with the various number of lines), though with some terminals this number was either reduced by half to 40 CPL, limited to 64 CPL... or optionally increased to 132 CPL (DEC VT100 family, with 14 lines). Such line lengths have been carried over into text modes of personal computers.
– UncleBod
34 mins ago