[vcf-midatlantic] 8-bits and 80 columns

[John Heritage]

Thanks!  I was really curious about some of these other machines.  That's
slightly funny but also nicely forward looking that the BBC Micro had the
mode even without enough RAM to do it...  pretty good for a 1981 machine
for sure.

Impressive also re: Amstrad CPC since those were low cost focused
machines.  I know they came a bit later but that 640x200 mode is very
useful for a lot of things, even if only 2 colors.

Thanks for sharing!

On Sun, Jun 26, 2022 at 1:15 PM Adam Sampson via vcf-midatlantic <
vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org> wrote:

> John Heritage via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic at lists.vcfed.org>
> writes:
>
> > Which (popular) 8-bit computers gained "easy" or even "standard" 80
> > column support? [...]
> > BBC Micro -  Looks like a native mode for 80 column support?
>
> Acorn's BBC Model B and later have 80x32 and 80x25 monochrome text modes
> (the Model A has the hardware, but doesn't have enough memory to use
> them). The Acorn Electron also supports these modes.
>
> Also in popular UK machines: All machines in the Amstrad CPC series have
> at least a 2-colour 640x200 mode, so they can do 80 column text. Most
> models in the Amstrad PCW series -- excepting the PcW16, which wasn't
> really a success -- use a 90x32 monochrome text mode, giving some extra
> space for margins when doing word processing.
>
> --
> Adam Sampson <ats at offog.org>                         <http://offog.org/>
>