Was it 110, 135, then 300?

From: Derek Peschel <dpeschel_at_eskimo.com>
Date: Fri Oct 27 04:58:12 2000

> Weren't there baudot (1 bps) modems? I dunno, my first one was 300 baud.

??? 1 bps is pretty slow!

Emile Baudot invented a five-key chorded keyboard, a way to turn the
keypresses into a signal and send it electrically, I assume some kind of
printer, and a five-bit binary-coded character set. People realized they
needed a unit to measure the speed of information transmission. They
created the unit -- one change in the signal state per second -- and named
it the "baud" after Baudot. (Old books talk of a machine working at so many
bauds, which makes sense but still seems funny to me.)

If a signal has more than two states, then one baud for that signal is more
than one bit per second.

Someone named Murray (I forget his first name) came up with a new five-bit
code designed to save wear on the tape punches by making the most frequent
letters have the fewest holes. People often talk about Baudot code when
they really mean Murray code.

The Teletype models that use the Murray code run at about 45 baud (or more
if you change the gears).

-- Derek
Received on Fri Oct 27 2000 - 04:58:12 BST