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Gopher/Technology, (sdf.org), 10/01/2018
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I found another case for 60 columns in gopher output... but
first, a review of the important existing cases:
1. Old gopher clients. I discovered gopher in recent years
while playing with an old DOS client. That client did very
poorly with more than 60 columns. Most of the old clients do
better or only work with ~60 columns.
2. Mobile gopher clients. DiggieDog for Android does better
on 60 columns, at least on my phone. It's probably the same
for everyone, I mean, how different could phones possibly
be?
3. Static platforms. Quite a few older or more obscure
platforms have no hope of getting gopher clients beyond what
they have in set stone today. And some of those, surely, do
better with 60 columns
4. Fun. 60 columns are more fun than 80 or 132 or
indeterminate columns, it's a proven fact.
And now, the new one that I discovered today:
5. The Raspberry pi, using composite video output and a
cheap 3.5" TFT screen from Amazon, setup with Terminus12x6
font, has just over 50 colums, which is darn near 60
columns in my current setup, and I might be able to push it
the rest of the way. There are probably at least one or two
other folks who have a similar setup.
And so, as you can clearly see, the case for 60 column
output in gopher is rock-solid and irrefutable. I expect
everyone will be migrating to 60 columns in the very near
future, and that it will be an official part of the new
gopher specification.
