IBM, sonic delay lines, and the history of the 80×24 display (2019)

lysace

No idea if this was a factor, but 80x25 on the IBM PC allows for showing 80x24 plus that extra line of function key labels: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_BASIC#/media/File%3AIBM_Ca... (IBM BASIC screenshot)

hanfoo

Deeply fascinated by these historical threads. It is precisely the various design choices made throughout history that have shaped the computer systems we use today.

II2II

Tangentially related: is there a history covering IBM's development of microcomputers? It is clear that the traditional story of the development of the IBM PC leaves out many important details. There the 5100/5110/5120, which goes back to the mid-1970's and reflects the stereotype of IBM. There is also the System/23 DataMaster, where the hardware seems to be the basis of the IBM PC. This seems to go against the traditional story that the IBM PC was some sort of renegade project. (If anything, they appear to be companion projects. The main difference being the DataMaster's focus upon IBM firmware/software.)

veltas

From a linked article on shift registers: > To avoid these astronomical prices, some computers used the cheaper alternative of shift register memory. Might be a direction for 2026 too?

thakoppno

One theory I saw argued the punch card size was the reason for 80x24. But why were punch cards that size? They were designed off of the cards used for the census. Why were the census cards that size? Because they were modeled after the dollar bill size. I do love thought experiments like this but do believe they’re insatiably unresolvable.

BirAdam

Man. I love the design of old terminals, computers, and such. I am, also, extremely glad that these form factors were abandoned. Having an old terminal, it is possibly the least ergonomic machine I have ever used.

Animats

The PARC crowd thought displays should have the form factor of a sheet of paper. Hence the Alto display.[1] That never caught on. [1] https://www.righto.com/2018/01/xerox-alto-zero-day-cracking-...

thangalin

The linage can be traced back to Basile Bouchon's paper tape invention in 1725. The article doesn't mention the role of punched cards in The Holocaust, though, which my blog post goes into: https://dave.autonoma.ca/blog/2019/06/06/web-of-knowledge/

pezezin

Fascinating article, I really like knowing where the old standards came from. But I am extremely curious the first picture in the "The IBM 2260 video display terminal" section. All the other pictures show the typical extremely round CRT of the era, but that one is the characteristic cylindrical tube of Trinitrons, a technology released several years later. I am trying to find some information about it to no avail.