Ssstephen: Created page with "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blXH5pO8GA4 watch it here] Why 160 character limit (SMS, Twitter, etc)? Based on 80 column line length of telex, selectrix, vt100, and even 1928 IBM punch cards. Maybe based on the size of the dollar bill in the late 19th century. Tests with postcards also revealed most were within 160 characters. Why gridded typography? From tabular lining numerals, early 1800s? What about older examples of gridded writing like Liber Loageath in 1583?..."

2022-11-24T18:36:13Z

Created page with "[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blXH5pO8GA4 watch it here] Why 160 character limit (SMS, Twitter, etc)? Based on 80 column line length of telex, selectrix, vt100, and even 1928 IBM punch cards. Maybe based on the size of the dollar bill in the late 19th century. Tests with postcards also revealed most were within 160 characters. Why gridded typography? From tabular lining numerals, early 1800s? What about older examples of gridded writing like Liber Loageath in 1583?..."

New page

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blXH5pO8GA4 watch it here]

Why 160 character limit (SMS, Twitter, etc)? Based on 80 column line length of telex, selectrix, vt100, and even 1928 IBM punch cards. Maybe based on the size of the dollar bill in the late 19th century. Tests with postcards also revealed most were within 160 characters.

Why gridded typography? From tabular lining numerals, early 1800s? What about older examples of gridded writing like Liber Loageath in 1583? Sumerian cuneiform often in seperate boxes (not gridded though), possibly relating to enumeration as well?

<pre>And the throne of his glory was established in it, this one on which his unrevealable name is inscribed, on the tablet [...] one is the word, the Father of the light of everything, he who came forth from the silence, while he rests in the silence, he whose name is in an invisible symbol. A hidden, invisible mystery came forth:
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE oooooooooooooooooooooo
uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
</pre>

From the Gospel of the Egyptians in Nag Hammadi Library, metaphysical power and mystery of repetition. Nicky credits the typewriter as the most important fixed width type machine or interface, as an influence on the monospace grid on the computer (screen). On proportional type "You could do this in the 15th century, it's not new!".

[https://www.theideaofthebook.com/pages/books/529/steve-mccaffery/carnival-the-first-panel-1967-70?soldItem=true Steve McCaffrey Carnival]

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baudot_code Baudot code]

NM talking about his computer generated poetry:

<pre>I think of that text as material, sometimes its an interesting material not just to see and to scroll by, but sometimes its an interesting material to comprehend, to see in a mass, but also to sample and to look at... its not always my goal to create something that's worth reading.</pre>

User:Ssstephen/Reading/Concrete Poems - Revision history