[OT] email standard maximum line length

[Paul E Condon <pecondon@quiknet.com>]

I am getting email from an old friend who is not a Debian type like
me.  He types his email into a window on what he calls 'just a
standard PC' and the computer automatically starts new lines on his
screen when needed. His software is, in his words, 'just plain mail
software, nothing special'.  Sometimes his emails are longer than a
few dozen words, and when they exceed about one thousand characters of
text, they are truncated. The last part of what he typed is simply
missing from my copy. I suppose that there is a line buffer somewhere
in the chain of delivery that is 1000 or 1024 bytes long. 

I am curious about where in the chain of delivery the truncation might
be happening. Is there a standard for email that specifies a line
buffer size?

My software is fetchmail and mutt. I have already established that the
truncation is not happening in mutt, because I see it in
/var/mail/pecondon .  I haven't yet figured out how I might check on
fetchmail. I don't have access to the internals of my ISP.

I'm working on getting him to press carriage return from time to time
as he types, but he is somewhat set in his ways.

TIA

-- 
Paul E Condon           
pecondon@quiknet.com