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- Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!prism!gt0449a
- From: gt0449a@prism.gatech.EDU (Rob Coleman)
- Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc.misc
- Subject: Re: Q: Are the Baud Rate and BPS same?
- Message-ID: <68153@hydra.gatech.EDU>
- Date: 14 Sep 92 20:30:06 GMT
- References: <1992Aug28.155701.218@news2.cis.umn.edu> <1001@engcon.marshall.ltv.com>
- Distribution: usa
- Organization: Georgia Institute of Technology
- Lines: 26
-
- >Baud rate and Bits per second are essentially the same thing.
-
- No, they are not. A "BAUD" is a signal change per second and a "bit"
- is a piece of information whose transfer is measured in BPS (bits per
- second). A 2400 BPS modem (what many people think of as baud) IS
- actually running at 2400 BAUD (signal changes per second). This means
- that at each "signal change" (from + to -, or vice versa), one bit is
- transferred. A 9600 BPS modem (such as v.32 modems) are still actually
- running at 2400 BAUD, but are using the "signal changes" more
- "effectively" by transferring 4 bits on each signal change. My
- understanding is that varying steps are used to denote the individual
- bits between each signal change from low to high (or high to low).
- This difference is what yields the speed increase from 2400 BPS to 9600
- BPS (and above). My understanding also is that at 1200 BPS (and
- lower?), BAUD and BPS are actually the same thing (1 bit per signal
- change). Inproving technology allowed one to increase the number of
- signal changes per second, and then the number of bits per signal
- change. Until 9600 were around, the two terms were interchangeable,
- and this is what originally caused the confusion.
-
- I'm sorry if this is very confusing -- at the time that I was taught
- about this, I had to think long and hard about it too. Please correct
- any discrepancies..
- --
- Rob Coleman ][ gt0449a@prism.gatech.edu ][ "I think I'm going bald!"
- Comp. Sci. ][ Georgia Institute of Technology ][ -Rush/COS
-