zlacker

>>todsac+(OP)
CLRF vs LF strikes again. Partly at least.

I wonder why even have a max line length limit in the first place? I.e. is this for a technical reason or just display related?

>>quibon+n5
Wait, now we have to deal with Carriage Line Return Feeds too?

I wonder if the person who had the idea of virtualizing the typewriter carriage knew how much trouble they would cause over time.

>>brk+Xs
Yeah, and using two bytes for a single line termination (or separation or whatever)? Why make things more complicated and take more space at the same time?

>>keybor+6x
Remember that back in the mists of time, computers used typewriter-esque machines for user interaction and text output. You had to send a CR followed by an LF to go to the next line on the physical device. Storing both characters in the file meant the OS didn't need to insert any additional characters when printing. Having two separate characters let you do tricks like overstriking (just send CR, no LF)

>>floren+nB
True, but I don’t think there was a common reason to ever send a linefeed without going back to the beginning. Were people printing lots of vertical pipe characters at column 70 or something?

It would’ve been far less messy to make printers process linefeed like \n acts today, and omit the redundant CR. Then you could still use CR for those overstrike purposes but have a 1-byte universal newline character, which we almost finally have today now that Windows mostly stopped resisting the inevitable.