Make sure this works when environment COLUMNS starts out not 80

Signed-off-by: rocky <rockyb@rubyforge.org>
Signed-off-by: waslogic <waslogic@gmail.com>
Some small doc changes and but mostly add in Martin's explanation in email.

Signed-off-by: rocky <rockyb@rubyforge.org>
Signed-off-by: waslogic <waslogic@gmail.com>
minimal removal of trailing whitespace