I'll never complain about 40 columns again

I’ve been eyeing an Altair remake. I don’t know why, I just love being close to the metal on machines. I’m a little too young to remember the Altair and I don’t recall ever seeing one in person.

I do however understand how it works and am fascinated by what it must have felt like to run programs you came up with and saved on paper tape on it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8InWiihlIQw

My Uncle ran his business on a Commodore VIC-20 for many years and I still have the Commodore 64 that I used until I graduated High School in 1993. I don’t recall when it went from being my Dad’s computer to mine, but I don’t think he minded me stealing it terribly much.

In my side project of learning 6502 Assembly language, I got sidetracked in comparing the Commodore 64 to the VIC 20. Seriously, how did anyone program on a VIC-20 with only 22 columns?

Commodore VIC-20 at 22 columns on the top and Commodore 64 on the bottom. Same program.

This BASIC program doesn’t actually run properly on the C64, because I’m using VIC-20 memory addresses. I just listed it on the 64 to compare the identical program on 22 columns vs 40 columns.

I always found 40 columns to be so limiting, but after trying out 22 columns, I think I’ll shut up about it. :-)