Richard, I'm not defending the 255 bar limit. But I think the explanation is that this is part of the file structure for songs that was set 30 years ago and would be difficult to change at this point.

For those who don't recognize the number, 255 measures up to 2 to the 8th, a binary number that must have been chosen as the limit at the time when space in a record stored on a computer was at a premium. Or, it could be expressed in a two-character hexadecimal number coded in assembly language. [I was teaching programming].

Since those early days we have progressed from 8-bit to 16-bit to 32-bit and now to 64-bit software. This 255 measure limit wasn't changed at those other times, either, so I have to conclude it's integral to the design of the program and will require a major rewrite to fix. Please note, I'm only speculating here.


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