Strangely I vividly remember setting (S)VGA text modes to higher counts than 80 per line for such UIs. Maybe my memory fails me and I'm mixing things up with Debian text mode installs?
Yes, some of the tools did, but the ones mentioned here didn't (QBasic, Norton Commander/Utilities, Turbo Pascal/Vision).
Norton Utilities did play some interesting games with modifying the VGA character set in real time, implementing a mouse cursor over the text mode. But it was still 80x25.
However, some if the programs adapted to 80x50 if you enabled that mode before (or while?) starting them.
Norton Utilities did play some interesting games with modifying the VGA character set in real time, implementing a mouse cursor over the text mode. But it was still 80x25.
However, some if the programs adapted to 80x50 if you enabled that mode before (or while?) starting them.