UNIX text console on a 480x320x1 LCD? good or bad?

[Nominal Animal]

The IDE made by Borland C and Pascal, and even the one made for Turbo Vision, were not that bad [...] with 80 columns.

Exactly, even on a 14" CRT display (with something like 274mm × 206mm active area).

On a 17" MultiSync CRT (>85 Hz refresh rate, something like 335mm × 251mm active area) I could comfortably use 132×56; 160×60 was okay but refresh rates tended to be limited back when I used CRTs.  Those correspond to 2.5mm × 4.5mm and 2.1mm × 4.2mm fonts.  With utterly crisp LCDs and TFTs, much smaller fonts are readable –– I'd guess 2.0mm×2.7mm? ––, but at least I need to move them closer to my eyes for comfortable viewing.

With 2.0mm×2.7mm fonts, 80×45 is 160mm × 120mm, for a diagonal size of 200mm ≃ 7.8".  Thus, in theory, I think 7" - 8" displays with a resolution of 640×360 or higher, should work for terminal use.  420×320 is borderline.

(Compare to e.g. BuyDisplay 7" IPS 800×480 ER-TFT070IPS-4, which takes 8 red data lines, 8 green data lines, 8 blue data lines, and HSYNC and VSYNC –– continuous refresh, that is –– and 3S9P backlight (max. about 9.3V at 180mA), currently priced at USD $17.40 or $25.10 with capacitive touch.  Native 8×8 font would give 100×60, a nice 8×10 font 100×48, a nicer 8×12 font 100×40.  With the FPC folded, the dimensions are 165mm × 100mm × 3.3mm.  Note that the pixel pitch is 0.192mm × 0.178mm, or 96:89 ≃ 1.0787; non-square pixels, and thus not suitable for e.g. VGA emulation.)