VAX/VMS called them "descriptors", which had IIRC 16 bits of flags, a 16-bit length, and a 32-bit pointer -- descriptors could be used for different object types, not just strings. The 64k length limit and 32-bit address were not a big issue back in 1982 when I first used them.
I used (Wirth's standard) Pascal in our compiler class in college. String handling was actually pleasant in Fortran-77 on VMS, so I figured pure Pascal had the worst string handling of any language -- until I started programming in C. I finally made peace with C strings, but a couple of decades later, Forth said to me, "Here, hold my beer." I wrote some Forth-word equivalents of some of the C Library string functions to make my life a little easier! :)
I used (Wirth's standard) Pascal in our compiler class in college. String handling was actually pleasant in Fortran-77 on VMS, so I figured pure Pascal had the worst string handling of any language -- until I started programming in C. I finally made peace with C strings, but a couple of decades later, Forth said to me, "Here, hold my beer." I wrote some Forth-word equivalents of some of the C Library string functions to make my life a little easier! :)