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The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card

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  The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-06-08 06:02 +0000
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-06-08 10:46 +0300
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card polygonum <rmoudndgers@vrod.co.uk> - 2014-06-08 09:19 +0100
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Richard Kettlewell <rjk@greenend.org.uk> - 2014-06-08 09:34 +0100
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-06-08 14:11 +0100
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-08 16:44 +0100
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-06-08 17:01 +0100
          Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2014-06-08 16:44 -0300
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card arnold@skeeve.com (Aharon Robbins) - 2014-06-08 20:04 +0000
              Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Bob Eager <news0002@eager.cx> - 2014-06-08 20:20 +0000
                Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-09 04:14 +0100
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Louis Krupp <lkrupp@nospam.pssw.com.invalid> - 2014-06-09 01:01 -0600
              Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Mike Spencer <mds@bogus.nodomain.nowhere> - 2014-06-10 15:40 -0300
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Paul Sture <nospam@sture.ch> - 2014-06-09 19:17 +0200
          Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Ben Bacarisse <ben.usenet@bsb.me.uk> - 2014-06-09 04:09 +0100
            Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Tim Streater <timstreater@greenbee.net> - 2014-06-09 10:39 +0100
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-06-09 10:15 +0000
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Marko Rauhamaa <marko@pacujo.net> - 2014-06-09 13:45 +0300
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card RS Wood <rsw@therandymon.com> - 2014-06-09 13:38 +0000
    Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card mick <invalid@invalid.invalid> - 2014-06-13 08:09 +0000
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-06-13 09:45 +0100
      Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card Rich <rich@example.invalid> - 2014-06-13 10:18 +0000
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card "BartC" <bc@freeuk.com> - 2014-06-13 14:29 +0100
        Re: The Tyranny of the Hollerith Punched Card scott@alfter.diespammersdie.us (Scott Alfter) - 2014-06-13 21:07 +0000

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#3649

"mick" <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote in message
news:539ab1d6$0$47847$c3e8da3$5d8fb80f@news.astraweb.com...
> On Sun, 08 Jun 2014 06:02:46 +0000, Rich wrote:
>
>> http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
>>
>>    ...
>>
>>    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
>>     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
>>     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
>>     thought so. Most people's are. And lots of coding standards in lots
>>     of organizations mandate this. For example, here is an excerpt from
>>     the Linux kernel coding style:"
>>
> <snip>
>
>
> I always thought it was a limit of the video generation on the monitors
> at the time. Using a 640x480 display, 80 columns allows for 8 dots per
> row on each character, allowing for nice easy dot generation in the video
> circuitry.

Even easier is using a power-of-two number of dots for the horizontal
resolution. So the first raster graphics display I ever saw was 256x256, as
was the first one I made. While the first text display I made myself was 16
x 64 characters.

There would have been VDUs around with 80 columns, which was needed to
emulate teletypes and card widths and such, but I couldn't tell you how many
dots there were per character. It wasn't impossible to have odd resolutions,
just a bit more awkward (and the units were expensive too).

Also, with displays that used TV line rates, and especially ones starting to
use colour , there were technical difficulties in going much beyond 640
dots. (Later displays had to go beyond the standard TV specs and start using
higher frequencies and better CRTs. In fact one problem I found was finding
a source of such monitors! Designing the hi-res graphics circuitry was much
easier.)


> Higher resolution displays are more recent but will, of
> course, handle more characters per line as there are more dots.

I remember seeing specialised screens in the mid-80s, using an unbelievable
1024x1280 dots, in colour (on a 19" but massive, and heavy, monitor).
Intended for graphics applications, when showing text using a standard 8x8
matrix, you could get 128 rows of 160 characters. It was practically
unreadable! So another problem is getting the right fonts.

(Actually, with a Windows console, you can set it to use a 8x8 raster font,
and roughly 128x160 characters, and get an idea of what it might have looked
like. But bear in mind that the CRT colour masks then, even for a high-spec
monitor, wouldn't be as good as a modern LCD display (or whatever the 
technology is now)).


-- 
Bartc 

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#3650

mick <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:
> On Sun, 08 Jun 2014 06:02:46 +0000, Rich wrote:

> > http://pub.gajendra.net/2012/09/hollerith_tyranny
> > 
> >    ...
> > 
> >    "Now fast-forward to the 21st century; a mere couple of thousand
> >     years after Caesar. Look at your screen. How wide is your terminal
> >     window or the text window of your editor? 80 columns? Yeah, I
> >     thought so. Most people's are. And lots of coding standards in lots
> >     of organizations mandate this. For example, here is an excerpt from
> >     the Linux kernel coding style:"
> > 
> <snip>

> I always thought it was a limit of the video generation on the monitors 
> at the time. Using a 640x480 display, 80 columns allows for 8 dots per 
> row on each character, allowing for nice easy dot generation in the video 
> circuitry. Higher resolution displays are more recent but will, of 
> course, handle more characters per line as there are more dots.

Which would lead to the question of: why 640x480 - what is magical
about that.

There were many serial terminals (i.e., same setup as a VT100) years
ago in the same days as IBM's magic 640x480 displays that could output
132 columns of text.  With CRT screens (ignoring the computer outputs
to drive it), esp. monochrome screens (i.e. lacking a shadow mask) the
resolution limitations were:

  1) physical size of the face of the tube
  2) after-glow time of the phosphor
  3) bandwidth of the electron-gun drive electronics

#1 determined the max your eye could possibly see

#2 determined what refresh rate had to be used (slower refreshes could
output more dots for the same input #3 bandwidth - at the risk of
flicker).  Longer after-glow also produced smear when scrolling.)

#3 determined the max the hardware could paint on screen at any given
set of horizontal and vertical scan rates.  The H/V scan rates
determined your comfort using the screen (flicker).

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#3656

"Rich" <rich@example.invalid> wrote in message
news:lnej6h$bc8$2@dont-email.me...
> mick <invalid@invalid.invalid> wrote:


>> I always thought it was a limit of the video generation on the monitors
>> at the time. Using a 640x480 display, 80 columns allows for 8 dots per
>> row on each character

> Which would lead to the question of: why 640x480 - what is magical
> about that.

The 480 lines nicely matched the TV line resolution in the US. If was useful
to be able to use monitors that were compatible with TV standards. I don't
know about the 640, except that it follows on from 480 lines if you wanted
square pixels (same nominal height and width) and a 4:3 aspect ratio.

> There were many serial terminals (i.e., same setup as a VT100) years
> ago in the same days as IBM's magic 640x480 displays that could output
> 132 columns of text.  With CRT screens (ignoring the computer outputs
> to drive it), esp. monochrome screens (i.e. lacking a shadow mask) the
> resolution limitations were:
>
>  1) physical size of the face of the tube
>  2) after-glow time of the phosphor
>  3) bandwidth of the electron-gun drive electronics

There is also how sharply you can focus the dot. Even, then driving a
monitor at its highest rating, the pixels would not be sharply defined
squares or rectangles as they are now.

> #1 determined the max your eye could possibly see
>
> #2 determined what refresh rate had to be used (slower refreshes could
> output more dots for the same input #3 bandwidth - at the risk of
> flicker).  Longer after-glow also produced smear when scrolling.)

1 and 2 are linked: since you are normally seated close to a screen, your
peripheral vision with a screen presenting a large field of view will pick
up a refresh rate that is too slow.

> #3 determined the max the hardware could paint on screen at any given
> set of horizontal and vertical scan rates.  The H/V scan rates
> determined your comfort using the screen (flicker).

Computer monitors tended not to use interlace, requiring double the 
bandwidth to avoid flicker.

-- 
Bartc 

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#3663

In article <lnej6h$bc8$2@dont-email.me>, Rich  <rich@example.invalid> wrote:
>Which would lead to the question of: why 640x480 - what is magical
>about that.

480 is the magic number: it's the number of lines visible on an NTSC
display.  Even if a given monitor wasn't handling NTSC video directly, odds
are it ran at the same scan rates.  CGA did this, as did the analog RGB from
such machines as the Apple IIGS and Amiga (and maybe the Atari ST; I'm not
sure).

640x480 gives you square pixels on such a display. 

  _/_
 / v \ Scott Alfter (remove the obvious to send mail)
(IIGS( http://alfter.us/            Top-posting!
 \_^_/                              >What's the most annoying thing on Usenet?

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