BAUD- Just Say NO!
Okay, everyone needs a pet peeve. Mine (which I must admit was
inherited from Ron Hoffmann and Dennis Baron) is the mis-use of the
word baud. Where is it mis-used? Just about everywhere.
BAUD: A unit of signaling speed equal to the number of discrete
conditions or signal events per second. In asynchronous transmission,
the unit of signaling speed corresponding to one unit interval per
second; that is, if the duration of the unit interval is 20
milliseconds, the siganling speed is 50 baud. Baud is the same as
"bits per second" only if each signal event represents exactly one
bit. A baud is the reciprocal of the unit interval.
Technical Aspects of Data Communication, John E. McNamara
An specific example are modems. A 9600bps modem is really 2400 baud,
because each event represents 4 bits. As far as modems go, if the
speed is over 600bps, bps != baud.
This message brought to you by the Society of Anal Retentive Engineers
(should that be hyphenated?)