← Back to context

Comment by lysace

9 hours ago

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)

6 comments

lysace

Reply
bluedino  8 hours ago

Imagine when edit.com came out and QBASIC used it for the editor. You lost two more lines of valuable code space!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS-DOS_Editor#/media/File%3AMS...

  • jtarrio  8 hours ago

    You know, this is funny because QBasic did not use EDIT.COM. Instead, QBasic was the editor and EDIT.COM was a simple program that called "QBASIC /EDIT" :-)

  • lysace  4 hours ago

    I recently went back to my 1993 Turbo Pascal code (mostly 2D VGA and Sound Blaster game engine experiments) on period correct hardware.

    I was surprised by how claustrophobic it felt to only see 21 lines of code in e.g. Turbo Pascal 7.0. Still didn’t like the squashed 80x43 mode.

    https://winworldpc.com/screenshot/c38a28c3-84c3-ba28-1011-c3...

    Then I remembered how larger displays and xterm felt like such a liberation a few years later.