Re:System Shock 1 source code released under GPL
by rusk on Friday April 06, 2018 @05:57AM
(#16772107)
I thought it was to do with the fact that you might want to use them separately sometimes? For instance you might want to repeat a line without a newline for a "bold" effect, or with underscores for underlining.
This is partly why stty and termios have options for CRLF translation on terminals. I'm sure there's some historical reason for that.