Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!brutus.cs.uiuc.edu!psuvax1!rutgers!texbell!swbatl!george
From: george@swbatl.UUCP (6544)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.hardware
Subject: Re: 2400 baud modems
Message-ID: <1184@swbatl.UUCP>
Date: 17 Feb 90 21:13:41 GMT
References: <5282@ur-cc.UUCP> <3967@hub.UUCP> <1990Feb17.130612.1828@chinet.chi.il.us>
Reply-To: george@swbatl.UUCP (George Nincehelser 5-6544)
Distribution: comp
Organization: Southwestern Bell Tele. Co. - Advanced Technology Lab - St. Louis
Lines: 27

In article <1990Feb17.130612.1828@chinet.chi.il.us> magik@chinet.chi.il.us (Ben Liberman) writes:
>Baud = bits/second. 

Just to clear up a common misconception:
BAUD IS NOT ALWAYS THE SAME AS BITS PER SECOND!

The following is paraphrased from the IEEE Standard Dictionary
of Electrical and Electronic Terms:

"The term ''baud'' defines the signaling speed, that is, keying 
rate of the modem.  The signaling speed in baud is equal to the
reciprocal of the shortest element duration in seconds to be
transmitted....The bit rate and baud are not synonomous and shall
not be interchanged in usage.  Preferred usage is bit rate, with
baud used only when the details of a communication modem or channel
are specified."

For example:
My modem is 2400 bps (bits per second), but its signaling rate is
1200 baud.  How can this be?  Two bits of information are encoded
into each signaling element.

-- 
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