Why did 80’s arcade machines mostly only allow 3 character names on the high score leader boards?

Question

I’ve played quite a few arcade games recently and there seems to be a limit on how many characters can be entered on to the leader board this is usually limited to 3 characters, why is this?

In: Technology

Answer 1

It was originally meant to be for entering the initials of your name (first, middle, last) as a way to enter your name without using much memory.