Historical question: LF vs. CR\LF in text files

[Bob Goudreau]

In article <1990Jun1.195910.29218 at dg-rtp.dg.com>, hunt at dg-rtp.dg.com
(Greg Hunt) writes:
> In article <253 at samna.UUCP>, jeff at samna.UUCP (Jeff Barber) writes:
> |> 
> |> UNIX's representation was (IMHO) a real innovation since it
> |> simplifies breaking text into lines in software.  The cost is
> |> that you need a device driver to interpret control characters
> |> on the way in from and out to the terminal.
> 
> You're correct in that it makes processing the lines in a file much
> easier, but incorrect in assuming that UNIX invented the idea.  It
> has been around for alot longer than UNIX, and was invented by 
> someone else (I don't know who).  One example I know of is the Data
> General AOS/VS series of computers, which have always interpreted LF
> or "Newline" as meaning CR/LF if you're not using raw I/O.  

While UNIX's use of LF as a unitary newline character may well have
been borrowed from some other OS, it most certainly was doing it
long before AOS/VS or even its predecessor AOS (which, BTW, are
operating systems, not computers) were.  Remember that UNIX dates
from 1969, which is only a year after DG was even incorporated.

> UNIX borrowed lots of ideas from other OS's, and vice-versa.  One thing
> UNIX should have (IMHO) learned from other OS's but didn't, is to use
> the ASCII FF "Form Feed" character....
> 
> I run into this all the time.  UNIX documents never print right on my
> AOS/VS printer, but AOS/VS documents always print right on my UNIX
> printer.  Oh well, nobody said UNIX didn't make some big mistakes.

I assume that by "UNIX documents" you refer here to the output of
text processors in general, and to nroff in particular.  (After all,
there's nothing preventing the use of ^L characters in human-generated
files; and besides, most UNIX utilities have no notion of page breaks.)
A minor irritant perhaps, but hardly a big mistake.  Certainly not as
big a mistake as having the OS make it difficult to print on all 66
lines of a standard line printer page, which is why those nroff-ed
documents don't print right on AOS/VS printers in the first place....

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