Well, it was 45 columns wide in the first place. But the 80 columns of the IBM revision is what you can squeeze into a letter size typewritten line at 10cpi, and that in turn is because, less margins, you get the ~65 characters long considered ideal for printed text.
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But why was the Hollerith card 80 chars wide in the first place?
Well, it was 45 columns wide in the first place. But the 80 columns of the IBM revision is what you can squeeze into a letter size typewritten line at 10cpi, and that in turn is because, less margins, you get the ~65 characters long considered ideal for printed text.