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               TidBITS 32nd Anniversary and the 32K Text Barrier

   Adam Engst

   In the early years of TidBITS, the Mac's built-in editing capabilities
   for text fields were limited to 32 kilobytes of text. That limitation
   [1]trickled down to numerous apps and systems'for instance, early
   versions of Eudora couldn't display more than 32K of text in a single
   message (see '[2]TidBITS & Eudora,' 3 April 1995). Unsurprisingly, the
   venerable BBEdit, which was [3]released on 12 April 1992 and recently
   celebrated [4]its 30th anniversary, had a custom text engine that never
   suffered from the 32K limit.

   That size restriction also hampered the email gateways that allowed
   messages to flow between the Internet and commercial online services
   like AOL, AppleLink, and CompuServe (see '[5]Gateways III/America
   Online,' 19 October 1992). For years, we had a self-imposed limit on
   the size of a TidBITS issue to ensure it wouldn't be bounced,
   truncated, or prevented from display because of being too large.

   The 32K limit eventually faded away, but given that this issue of
   TidBITS marks our 32nd anniversary, it recently popped back into my
   head. There is something to be said for the focus provided by an
   arbitrary constraint. Since the dawn of printing, publishers have
   edited text to fit within a physical space on a page, and by the early
   1990s, desktop publishing had supplemented the editor's efforts with
   powerful copyfitting tools that could adjust font size, leading,
   kerning, and more. But we couldn't avail ourselves of such layout
   trickery'when TidBITS needed to traverse an email gateway or be
   displayed in a 32K-limited app, a character was a character. So we
   trimmed and tweaked each week until Nisus told us that the character
   count was low enough.

   I don't miss having to cut 1200 characters to get a TidBITS issue down
   to size before publishing, but there was a sense of comfort in being
   bounded, in not feeling the need to comment on everything because there
   was simply no room. Technology has infiltrated nearly every part of
   modern life, and it's difficult, as a technology publisher, to resist
   the pull to express an opinion on every topic that comes down the pike.
   We may write about subjects that venture further afield at times, but
   it's important to me'and you'that we maintain our attention on the
   world of Apple.

   All this is by way of saying that even if TidBITS is on track to exceed
   its own 32K barrier of sorts with 32 years of publication, I hope that
   you'll continue to appreciate our focus on Apple-related tech news,
   reviews, techniques, and explorations that ease tedious tasks,
   encourage good computing habits, explain complex topics, and remind us
   how amazing today's technology is.

   As we reach this milestone, I'd like to thank all those who have helped
   TidBITS over the years, especially the [6]3650 current TidBITS members,
   and I hope those whose memberships are up for renewal will continue to
   support our work. Voluntary contributions like these have kept TidBITS
   financially stable since 2011. Modern publishing trends encourage
   exclusive subscription-only email newsletters and website paywalls, but
   TidBITS will continue to be available to those who can't pay as long as
   we can make ends meet. If you [7]join the TidBITS membership program at
   any level, you'll also get discounts on over 90 Mac apps, including
   [8]TextExpander from longtime sponsor [9]Smile.

References

   1. https://tidbits.com/page/3/?s=32K
   2. https://tidbits.com/1995/04/03/tidbits-eudora/
   3. https://groups.google.com/g/comp.sys.mac.announce/c/gvPGyuX3UCs
   4. https://www.barebones.com/company/history.html
   5. https://tidbits.com/1992/10/19/gateways-iiiamerica-online/
   6. https://tidbits.com/members/
   7. https://tidbits.com/membership/benefits/
   8. https://textexpander.com/
   9. https://smilesoftware.com/

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