---
title: "MS Word for OS-X: Nostalgia edition"
url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/16/ms-word-for-os-x-nostalgia-edition.md"
canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/16/ms-word-for-os-x-nostalgia-edition.html"
published: "2004-01-16T23:00:00"
updated: "2004-01-16T23:00:00"
tags: ["Off Topic"]
author: "Roy Osherove"
description: "\"Well, we now know that MS engineers know that OS X is Unix. The trouble is, they seem to have used a really old Unix reference manual when they built Word for OS X - Arcterex noticed that Word on OS X enforces a 31…"
usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)."
license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/"
---

# MS Word for OS-X: Nostalgia edition

By Roy Osherove January 16, 2004 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

**Historical article** · Originally published January 16, 2004; technical details may be outdated.

_"Well, we now know that MS engineers know that OS X is Unix. The trouble is, they seem to have used a **really old Unix reference manual** when they built Word for OS X -_ [_Arcterex_](http://arcterex.net/blog/archives/2004/01/15/file_name_limit_in_office_x.html) _noticed that Word on OS X enforces a 31 character limit on filenames - and I just got verification on that from another OS X user,_ [_Alan Knight_](http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/userblogs/knight/blogView)_. Amazing, simply amazing.... "_

_\[[Cincom Smalltalk blog](http://www.cincomsmalltalk.com/blog/blogView?showComments=true&entry=3251631195)\]_

## More in Off Topic

[All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic)

- Jan 20, 2004

    ### [\[OT\]Subscription honors](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/20/otsubscription-honors.html)

- Jan 17, 2004

    ### [The RSA encryption algorithm - step by step](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/17/the-rsa-encryption-algorithm-step-by-step.html)

- Jan 15, 2004

    ### [X# video snagged my MS](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/15/x-video-snagged-my-ms.html)

- Jan 12, 2004

    ### [Are you in Israel and reading this?](https://osherove.com/blog/2004/1/12/are-you-in-israel-and-reading-this.html)


---

## About the author

**Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery.

### Sites

- [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership.
- [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts.
- [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin.
- [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model.
- [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps.
- [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes).

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### Contact

- Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7

### License

Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/