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From: Janis Papanagnou <janis_papanagnou+ng@hotmail.com>
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: 80 char lines and holerith cards [Was:Which code style do you
 prefer the most?]
Date: Tue, 1 Apr 2025 19:11:08 +0200
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On 01.04.2025 15:52, Scott Lurndal wrote:
> Jakob Bohm <egenagwemdimtapsar@jbohm.dk> writes:
>>
>> Another likely inspiration at the time would be the number of
>> characters per line on ordinary office paper of the period using 
>> ordinary typewriters of the period . 
> 
> Indeed, at a pitch of 10, an 80 character line left 1/4"
> margins on an US standard 8.5" wide sheet of paper.
> 
> The margin bell usually rang at 72 characters.

By "usually" do you mean it was fixed but depending on the specific
machine? Or that the machine was typically configured by the typist
to rang with the 72th column?

The typewriter I have (just a common machine) had these soft bounds
you could set for the first and the last text column. The bell was
triggered *depending* on the right bound set; it rang with the 7th
character before the right bound reached, so that was when typing
the 73th character column only if you set the bound to 80 columns.
Typically you had not set the right bound to 80 columns because you
wanted some blank space (similar to the indent on the left side),
so the bell (with typical settings) rang before column 72.

Janis