Were A record domain names ever limited to 23 characters?

Fri Oct 7 18:28:00 UTC 2011

On Friday, September 30, 2011 05:54:38 PM steve pirk [egrep] wrote:
> I seem to recollect back the 1999 or 2000 times that I was unable to
> register a domain name that was 24 characters long. Shortly after that, I
> heard that the character limit had been increased to like 128 characters,
> and we were able to register the name.
> 
> Can anyone offer some input, or is this a memory of a bad dream?
> ;-]

At least as of 2008, you could go 45 characters, not counting the TLD:
++++++++++++++++++
$ whois pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com
[Querying whois.verisign-grs.com]
[Redirected to whois.above.com]
[Querying whois.above.com]
[whois.above.com]
The Registry database contains ONLY .COM, .NET, .EDU domains and
Registrars.Registration Service Provided By: ABOVE.COM, Pty. Ltd.
Contact: +613.95897946

    Domain Name: PNEUMONOULTRAMICROSCOPICSILICOVOLCANOCONIOSIS.COM

    Registrant:
        Above.com Domain Privacy
        8 East concourse
        Beaumaris
        VIC
        3193
        AU
        pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com at privacy.above.com
        Tel. +61.395897946
        Fax. 

    Creation date: 2008-02-20
    Expiration Date: 2012-02-20
...
$ ping www.pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com
PING www.pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com (69.43.161.151) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 69.43.161.151: icmp_req=1 ttl=50 time=85.9 ms
64 bytes from 69.43.161.151: icmp_req=3 ttl=50 time=85.7 ms
64 bytes from 69.43.161.151: icmp_req=4 ttl=50 time=85.8 ms
64 bytes from 69.43.161.151: icmp_req=5 ttl=50 time=85.6 ms
^C
--- www.pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis.com ping statistics ---
5 packets transmitted, 4 received, 20% packet loss, time 4002ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 85.618/85.815/85.984/0.132 ms
+++++++++++++++++++++

FWIW.