Path: utzoo!yunexus!geac!syntron!jtsv16!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: ASCII
Message-ID: <356@auspex.UUCP>
Date: 29 Oct 88 06:13:46 GMT
Article-I.D.: auspex.356
References: <347@spies.UUCP> <670025@hpclscu.HP.COM> <24355@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <1991@stpstn.UUCP> <381@infmx.UUCP> <24566@bu-cs.BU.EDU> <3989@rl
Reply-To: guy@auspex.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 19

>  I think Henry's right. There is no newline in ASCII,

Well, I don't have ANSI X3.4-1977 handy to check what Line Feed really
means in the original spec for ASCII, but I *do* have ANSI X3.64-1979
handy, and in its description of LINE FEED NEW LINE MODE (for all the
UNIX hackers in the audience, you can think of it as "am" :-)) it says:

	The reset state causes the interpretation of the Format effector
	Line Feed (LF) defined in ANSI X3.4-1977 to imply only vertical
	movement of the active position.  The set state causes the
	Format Effector Line Feed (LF) to imply movement to the first
	position of the following line.

>it's a feature(?) of the C language,

Well, originally more of a feature of the UNIX operating system, which C
inherited - or, more correctly, a feature of the Multics operating
system (no, it's not a feature of the PL/I language :-)) that UNIX
picked up.