Victor S. Miller  <VICTOR@YKTVMZ> says:
# (I)... recall a suggestion I had made a while ago about how
# mailers in bitnet should deal with lines of length > 80: ... any
# line of length > 80 should be split up.  The first character on
# the second and succeeding lines should be a backspace.  Since it
# is impossible for text files to have that combination,
 
  It certainly is.  It is explictly not allowed in RFC822.  An
  RFC822 body is a sequence of 'texts'.  Quoting from 822:
 
!   3.4.9.  BACKSPACE CHARACTERS
!
!      ASCII BS characters (Backspace, decimal 8) may be included  in
!      texts and quoted-strings to effect overstriking.  However, any
!      use of backspaces which effects an overstrike to the  left  of
!      the beginning of the text or quoted-string is prohibited.
!
!   August 13, 1982              - 15 -                      RFC #822
 
  I understand this to mean that a backspace may not occur as the
  first character of a line of text.
 
#                       Victor
 
Michael