Thanks Perderabo. I did two different commands (one to create a directory which I realized may have been a problem other than the 'limit' on command line) but both errored by beeping constantly and giving an error in the middle of the line.

On one, it cut a grep command and came back with "command not found" for "rep" and the other died along the same line (same number of characters).

cat passwd | grep h | grep o | grep m | grep e | grep a | grep i | grep o | grep 8 | grep 1 | grep 3 | grep 2 | grep 9 | grep "-" | grep S | grep b | grep l | grep t | grep L | grep 4 | grep d | grep r | grep 0 | grep V | grep I | grep abal | grep k | grep and | grep ers | grep eit | grep N | grep z | grep w | grep g | grep N
$ V | grep I | grep abal | grep k | grep <
usage: grep [-E|-F] [-c|-l|-q] [-bhinsvx] -e pattern_list...
[-f pattern_file...] [file...]
usage: grep [-E|-F] [-c|-l|-q] [-bhinsvx] [-e pattern_list...]
-f pattern_file... [file...]
usage: grep [-E|-F] [-c|-l|-q] [-bhinsvx] pattern [file...]

Note that when hitting return, it errors and gives back a prompt and includes the rest of the line as a start of a new command ($ V | grep 1 ....).

This is probably some other parameter set differently from one system to the next (or possibly shell) but I figured I would ask about it. I can also get the same response on Solaris even though I found some indication that the same information you suggested was true for it too. Ksh on HP and csh on Solaris. And for some reason I get a few more characters (about 40 ) on Solaris. The whole thing is strange and inconsistant.