F716.0_1a409993@fidonet.org>   
   From: alexander koryagin    
      
   Hi, Ardith Hinton!   
   I read your message from 27.05.2013 21:46   
      
    IS>> Or is there a chance for a line to be split,  or mangled,  by  the   
    IS>> software even if less than 80 (79) characters long these days?   
      
    AH> In a word... yes. I know two or three Fidonetters, for example, who   
    AH> set their margins at  40  characters  per  line.  One  is  visually   
    AH> impaired & uses a screen  reader  which  imposes  this  limit.  The   
    AH> other(s) may also have limitations imposed by their hardware and/or   
    AH> software for reasons I'm  unaware  of.  However,  I  can  offer  an   
    AH> educated guess as to what's going on.   
      
    AH> Over the years I've observed SysOps & BBS users struggling  to  get   
    AH> by on very low incomes because of medical conditions which make  it   
    AH> difficult... if not impossible...  to find steady employment.  Such   
    AH> people often depend on other  people's  castoffs,  which  may  seem   
    AH> quite beyond the pale to younger folks and/or  to  the  fashionable   
    AH> crowd.  Dallas tells me the instruction manual for the Atari 130XE,   
    AH> which ceased production in 1987, is still available. To the best of   
    AH> our knowledge there was no mailer for it.  But my point is that  it   
    AH> also limited the display to 40 characters per line & other stuff of   
    AH> a similar vintage may behave the same way.  Retirees with  pensions   
    AH> based on how much $$$  they  earned  in  pre-  inflation  days  are   
    AH> another group who could be making do with  antique  equipment.  And   
    AH> then...  as Roy has just reminded me...  some people prefer to  set   
    AH> their margins at 72-78 characters although they  could  use  80  if   
    AH> they wanted to.   
      
      IMHO the right approach to this problem is simple.  Clients' software   
   must not work with a raw text.  The client program must transform it  so   
   it will be good for the particular device.  In other words any text must   
   be good. We only have to know that at some devices they will not see our   
   beautiful right aligned texts as they are supposed to be seen.   
      
      I use 72 symbols now because my Mozilla  Thunderbird  with  FtnQuoter   
   plugin has a funny feature -  it wraps the text with line's width=72 and   
   I can't set up the length where the text line to be wrapped. There is no   
   such an option.   
      
      FtnQuoter plugin (besides  its  text  quoting  ability)  inserts  the   
   kludge X-Comment-To to my messages headers.  That's why I  can't  refuse   
   using it.   
      
   Bye, Ardith!   
   Alexander Koryagin   
   fido7.english-tutor 2013   
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