> On Dec 1, 2019, at 3:33 PM, Brian E Carpenter <brian.e.carpenter@xxxxxxxxx> wrote: > > On 02-Dec-19 08:09, John Levine wrote: >> In article <1a1726cf-70a0-019d-1138-c5e22f258d4d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> you write: >>> I thought the format was a compromise between US Letter format, A4 >>> format, and printers. >> >> I thought it was 72 characters because that's how many you got on a >> punch card, leaving 8 for the sequence number. > > Keith is right and it was one of Postel+Reynolds's wiser decisions. The only case where it goes wrong is with software or printers that fail to recognise the FF (form feed) character correctly. > > Phill is correct that it wastes some white space; that's the price of fitting into both paper sizes. When I print drafts, which is rarely, I do it "booklet" style which limits waste paper considerably. > > As we discussed 3 years ago, numbered pagination is useful in a printable format but irrelevant in a screen-only format. except for references - section numbers are frequently far too far apart when you want to point someone to a particular chunk of text Scott > > Can we stop now? > > Brian >> >>> What would be parochial would be to assume that nobody in the world >>> needs to print RFCs using mechanical printers any more - that everyone >>> in the world should have laser printers, ample power for their fusers, >>> and a generous supply of suitable paper and toner - >> >> I think that if you price all the printers made in the past decade or >> two, you'll find that there are a lot of laser and inkjet printers and >> close to nothing else, certainly nothing restricted to fixed pitch >> text. The only mechanical printers I recall seeing in recent years >> are antique Okidata dot matrix units printing whatever it is they >> print at airport gates. >> >> R's, >> John >> >> >
