[Bug: 21.5-b28] why fold an 80-char line in an 80-col window?

skip at pobox.com skip at pobox.com
Mon Feb 25 08:24:04 EST 2008


    Stephen> Guido van Rossum writes:
    >> (*) When is Emacs going to fix the bug where it decides to fold a
    >> line that's exactly as wide as the window? This 79 business is really
    >> silly, and had to impose on people using other editors.

    Stephen> I've always wanted to fix this.  Anybody know of reasons why
    Stephen> not?

Back in the day I seem to remember something about some terminals (this was
before the widespread availability of computers with window systems) not
being able to handle display in the last column.  We're spoiled today.
Almost all terminal emulators support a VT100-like command set and use
fairly mature, pretty much bug-free code.  That wasn't always the case.
Take a look at your termcap file or terminfo database sometime.  (I see
nearly 2500 compiled terminfo descriptions on my Mac.)  When was the last
time you used an ADM-5, an AMPEX 219 or an HP 2621a?  There are probably
descriptions of terminals in there that went out of production 35 years ago.
Some of those terminals were bound to have bugs in their 80th column display
handling.

Skip



More information about the XEmacs-Beta mailing list