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Re: LF/CR conversion

Linards Ticmanis wrote:

Michael J. Mahon wrote:



I've often wondered why the old CR/LF convention persists.  It would
be trivial to treat CR/LF as simply CR and save a character for each
line.  I wonder how much old code would actually not work (most of it
probably acts on the CR and discards the LF)?



Inertia I assume. Some programs won't work if their input doesn't have
CR/LF, so people keep including it in the output of their stuff.

Or maybe it's a memorial to the TTY? Though those old 50 bps baudot-code
beasts I had the honor of operating in the German military 13 years ago
actually needed CR/CR/LF to work reliably. Some slightly newer models
had a single key to produce that combination.


I remember teletypes!  That, in fact, is why it's CR/LF rather than
LF/CR, in case anyone cares.  ;-)  CR takes longer to finish, and adding
the LF character time is enough for most teleprinters to get back to the
left side of the paper (at 10cps).

If the carriage grease gets stiff (or cold), then multiple character
times may be needed to avoid "flying print".  Nulls used to work fine.

-michael

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