Were A record domain names ever limited to 23 characters?

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? ;-] -- Steve Pirk Yensid