Comment by cb321

I am not sure you'll be satisfied but this article by mhoye has a section on Watson and typewriters that seems relevant and is fun to read regardless: https://exple.tive.org/blarg/2019/10/23/80x25/

Parenthetically, I think much discussion around this neglects the constraints / true ultimate causes of human eye resolving power (in minutes of arc not DPI|millimeters) and cognitive "line tracking" (think narrow newspaper columns). I.e., they are from the perspective of device manufacturers / producers not receiving brains / consumers. At least in theory, the former is trying to please the latter after all, but eyes/brains haven't really evolved much in this respect since antiquity / the dawn of writing. This is just a pet peeve of mine that maybe you share, and clearly in the realm of 2x..4x not few% and so not on track with your question like the article I linked :-) TLDR - while a "standard viewing distance" is good enough for eye charts, I guess it's too complicated for "marketing hardware" and it's all too easy to get caught up in manufacturer framing.