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From: bobmon@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu (RAMontante)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware
Subject: Re: Baud vs. bps.
Summary: nits to pick
Message-ID: <56308@iuvax.cs.indiana.edu>
Date: 4 Sep 90 12:54:29 GMT
Organization: malkaryotic
Lines: 17

dmt@pegasus.ATT.COM (Dave Tutelman) <5022@pegasus.ATT.COM> :
| 
|    -	Baud IS A RATE.  It doesn't make sense to talk about "300
| 	bauds per second", any more than "knots per hour".  The
| 	correct usage is "300 bauds" for 300 symbols per second.

I claim that it ought to be "300 Baud", not "300 bauds".  By way of
analogy, we speak of "50 MegaHertz", not "50 Megahertzes".

Also, much as I hate to say this, it may be that binary-digital types
will evolve a variant definition of "Baud" that suits their need better
than the analog-EE one.  Namely, BAUD == INFORMATION BITS PER SECOND.
Certainly many people use it this way, and most modems are marketed
using this definition.  There is precedent for it, too --- computerish
types treat the prefix "kilo" (abbreviated "K" or sometimes "k") as
meaning 2^10 == 1024, although the formal SI definition is 10^3 == 1000,
and similarly for "mega", "giga", etc.