greg said:
>   Or what is the most primitive device in use today

the web-browser.

a web-browser won't wrap the lines on a .txt file, so
if the hard-returns were removed from p.g. .txt files,
the lines would run off the screen of a web-browser.

try it if you don't believe me.

***

it's absolutely true that project gutenberg should have
given users a tool that would remove the hard returns,
and it should've done that years ago, but it's also true
that the .txt files _should_ have hard-returns in them.

now, i'd suggest that those hard-returns should mimic
the ones found in the print-books against which the text
was proofed, but that won't help the books already done.

-bowerbird