Re: [MacPerl] Recognizing Unix Line Breaks

[Angus McIntyre <angus@pobox.com>]

At 9:45 am +0200 07.05.97, Lasse Hiller¿e Petersen wrote:
>... I'm sure CRLF precedes MicroSnot DOS by a decade or so. It
>certainly was used in CP/M ... In a wicked
>way CRLF even makes sense on slow machines with slow output devices and
>moderate storage.

Surely CRLF dates from the early electro-mechanical output devices (such as
teleprinters) where one code was required to send the carriage back to the
start position and a second one to force a linefeed. There must have been
cases where it made sense to issue one without the other, so the two were
kept separate.

CRLF makes sense when you think of physically controlling a device, but
it's a poor choice as a logical separator. I suppose we should be grateful
that it was Microsoft who stumbled into that particular Bad Design
Decision; it could just as easily have been Apple. It's just a pity that
Apple didn't go with the UNIX standard from the outset.

Wonder what they'll use in Rhapsody, and if it'll change depending on
whether you're in the Yellow or the Blue Box? There's a whole can of worms
just waiting to be opened there. I just hope they don't decide to
standardize on tab, or Ctrl-G (BEL) or something ...

				A

--
angus@pobox.com                             http://pobox.com/~angus

"If I repent anything, it is very likely to be my good behavior.
 What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?"     [H.D. Thoreau]



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