Exactly, putting (meaningful) characters instead of dots got really going when copy machines made some dots disappear after more than one "copy of a copy" was made.

Then when fax machines came along sometimes dots would disappear or be unclear on a single transmission.

Either way, occasionally sometimes the page would also be scattered with random dots too because of degraded photosensitive operation, or audio-frequency noise on the telephone line at the time.

And it got even more uncertain when text that is not fixed-width got within mainstream reach :\