title: Does COBOL force the first 6 characters of a line to be numbers because it compiles easier to binary executables?
body: <p>I was watching a <a href="https://youtu.be/oO8_2JJV0B4" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Ben Eater video</a> and noticed that first 8 characters of a bin file line all had some form of address and remembered COBOL. Are these related or just coincidences? Is it just a convention making compilation easier?</p>