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A two part question:

  1. Did an agreed upon convention for end of line (EOL) within text files exist on the 8-bit Commodores?
  2. If there was a convention, what was it?
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C64 Basic used a CR as EOL for disk files.

(source: Commodore SX-64 User's Guide, page 22: “CR stands for the CHR$ code 13, the carriage return, which is automatically PRINTed at the end of ever PRINT or PRINT# statement … ”, and verified by hex dump of disk image showing 0x0d at line end.)

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    It seemed like ASCII 13 was the EOL for all the 8-bits I used back in the day. Exception was UNIX platforms (LF) and IBM PC (CR/LF). I'm not aware of any other variations.
    – bjb
    Commented Oct 4, 2016 at 16:57
  • Amstrad CPC had CR/LF, as I suspect had CP/M
    – scruss
    Commented Oct 4, 2016 at 22:56
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    @bjb: For files, CR was definitely the norm. For printers, the combination of CR+LF was very common, since it allowed use of a lone CR for overprinting (a convention observed in some Unix utilities). It's interesting to note that early ASCII-based teletypes required that some time elapse between the receipt of a CR and the receipt of the next printable character, so if a CR wasn't followed by an LF it would have to be followed by a NUL, BEL, or other non-printing character absent some other means of ensuring a delay.
    – supercat
    Commented Oct 6, 2016 at 21:44
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    MSX also used CR/LF, so it was mainstream
    – scruss
    Commented Dec 5, 2016 at 20:28
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I remember downloading a lot of dox files off BBS's back in the day, and given that most files were ascii from other platforms, I think the standard CrLf or Cr or Lf end of line was common. But I also remember word processors like Bank Street Writer and Speedscript being proprietary file formats.

So it was probably dealers choice; no official standard, and it was up to the operator to pair the data files with appropriate software capable of properly viewing them.

I also remember moving data from speedscript via null modem to apple so I could print on the ImageWriter at school used to give me no end of trouble... grr... :-)

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