80 columns in BASIC

[Lamont McCloud]

Good evening all

I have a question (yet another 🙂), if I may...

Regardless of which version of BASIC I'm running on my Altair-Duino (4k, 8k, 16k, Disk, Extended), and whether or not I'm using my PC (puTTY) or a monitor, I seem to be only getting 73 columns (0-72) on my display. How (if possible) can I get the full 80 columns?

I can't seem to find anything to assist with this on the configurations menu.

Again, thanks in advance for any input/support.

[Eric Smith]

On Wed, Sep 10, 2025, 22:31 Lamont McCloud <biglo...@gmail.com> wrote:

I seem to be only getting 73 columns (0-72) on my display. 

73 column output seems very weird. I'd expect early BASIC interpreters might have imposed a 72-character limit, as they were expected to be used with a Model 33 ASR (or KSR) Teletype, which could only handle 72 columns, and did not automatically perform a carriage return or line feed if that was exceeded.

[Tom Wilson]

I've tested this, and BASIC does have an internal 80 column limit. It actually counts to 80 and prints a CRLF, if one has not been received. 

If your terminal is not showing all 80 columns, then this is probably an issue with your monitor. I'd suggest running a simple BASIC program to print 80 characters of text, then using the auto-adjust on your monitor.

Tom Wilson
wils...@gmail.com
+1(619)940-6311 

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[Patrick Linstruth]

Look at the WIDTH command in the BASIC-80 manual.

“The default width is 72 characters.”

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[John Galt]

you could just add a '0 WIDTH 80' to your program or type 'WIDTH 80' in the interpreter then see if you get the full 80.