TIMTOWTDI
update: More or less the same idea as duff i see :)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;
my $txt = "just wondering how i can have perl display part of my long 
+memo. basically i want the first lets say 255 charachters of the para
+graph. im really new to perl so i don't know how i would come about t
+his? a regex perhaps? just started reading about that today. so basic
+ally something like";
my $n = 20;
$txt =~ m/(.{$n})/gs;
print $1;
[download]

ok, yet another way then :)

#!/usr/bin/perl -w

use strict;

my $txt = "just wondering how i can have perl display part of my long 
+memo. basically i want the first lets say 255 charachters of the para
+graph. im really new to perl so i don't know how i would come about t
+his? a regex perhaps? just started reading about that today. so basic
+ally something like";

my @a = split("",$txt); 

for (my $i=0; $i<20; $i++) {
    print $a[$i];
}
[download]