Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!olivea!uunet!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: The Amiga's Future Message-ID: <22230@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 7 Jun 91 00:11:29 GMT Article-I.D.: cbmvax.22230 References: <1991Jun4.003619.3661@news.iastate.edu> <1991Jun4.025024.823@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun4.105736.15468@news.iastate.edu> <1991Jun4.230303.25634@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun6.043014.22805@neon.Stanford.EDU> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 37 In article <1991Jun6.043014.22805@neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan Torrie) writes: >rjc@geech.gnu.ai.mit.edu (Ray Cromwell) writes: >>Why can't text processing be done in 640x200? IBM's Text mode on >>the older machines was 80 columns x 25 lines and it didn't seem to >>inhibit their ability to dominate the market. > Yes, but 80 x 25 was better than anything else on the market at >the time... Most other machines were struggling with either all >uppercase, or 64 x 16, or 40 x 24 or some other weird combination. Interesting bit of revisionist history here. I guess, if you counted units, than sure, 40 column displays were standard, since most machines out there were Apple IIs and C64s around the time the IBM came into being. And some of the Radio Shacks had 64x16 displays, while the Exidy Sorcerer had 64x30. Other than home computers, however, the standard had been 80x24 or 80x25 for years. All the Commodore Business Computers (CBM 8032 is an example) had had 80 column displays for years. Virtually all CP/M machines, of which the PC was the philosophical if not direct decendent, had 80 column displays, which were generally emulating some smart terminal protocol. Because previous generation CP/M machines had been using actual terminals, like ADM-31s and 3a's, since they didn't have built-in display controllers. > 640 x 200 can hardly be counted as better than anything else >on the market. No, but it's perfectly acceptable if all you're after is a little bit of word processing. At least until you get used to something better (I'm pretty much stuck in the 1000x800 zone myself), 640x200, or 80x25 text, is just dandy for word processing. The same cannot be said about 40 column displays, they just aren't wide enough, since most letters need at least 60 or so characters across a page. -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "This is my mistake. Let me make it good." -R.E.M.