In 1870 Émile Baudot created a code for telegraphy that used bits in place of dot and dashes. That allowed more words per minute to be transmitted than was possible with morse code.
With Baudot code machines could be built that would automatically decode the signal and type it out as plain english. This technology would be called the teletype machine.
Teletype machines still used this code or variation until they were replaced over a century later.
This is also where the term Baud rate comes from.
used bits in place of dot and dashes
So instead of a trinary system (dash, dot, pause) where the length of the signal indicated the type, it switched to a simple off/on with no need to delay on each bit? It’s surprising it took so long for someone to come up with that improvement, or was it mainly held up by needing someone to invent technology to automatically encode/decode the stream?
Basically. Dash, dot and pause could vary depending on the operator. Baudot code is more like dividing each second into 5 spaces (so 1/5, 2/5, 3/5, 4/5, and 5/5 of a second) and sending either a pulse or no pulse at each time period to generate a 5-bit character code.
These early machines used electromagnets and gears to operate so a long pulse, short pulse and pause couldn’t be converted to a system that’d mechanically instruct a machine to convert it to a letter. All the inventions that coded and decoded and printed messages used a proprietary code and not morse code (based on my research.) Since “wire services” usually owned their own lines they could transmit any code they’d like so long as it wasn’t a voltage so high it’d damage the wires (you could also swap polarity.)
With a bit based system it’s much easier to build a machine that can convert those signals into a printer. Theres a few videos online of Baudot type printers being restored and running and you can see how it converts these pulses into movements which select a specific letters typewriter hammer before the “print” command slams it against the paper. Really ingenious stuff and amazing they could make these things work using gears, cogs and mechanical linkages.
Even the stock ticker system uses a similar method. A special signal, not morse code but some other code transmitted by telegraph wire, was used that the ticker was designed to operate on. Those signals drove the mechanisms that rotated the printing wheel so they could print the stock name and price.
Telegraphy is a fun science. Real simple since it’s basically electromagnets clicking. But they really did a lot with that tech and as manufacturing improved and transmission quality improved they started squeezing more signals into a single line (multiplexing) as well as making these teletype devices which could print complete messages as a pretty quick WPM rate. And Baudots code was used right up to the early digital phone era in some cases.
At some point in the '80s someone convinced me that “baud” was an acronym for “bits of actual, usable data” and I believed that for far too long.
Sounds like a backronym
Clever but inaccurate. You can try and convince people that the word “bawdy” also came from Baudot because he was a Frenchman that used his improved telegraphy code to share juicy details about the ladies he courted. I can’t save for sure he didn’t do that, what with being a successful Frenchman and all.
My condolences to all those who are unsuccessfully French
We call those Quebecois
Freincels (French Involuntary Celibates)
A telegraph “operate”? Did you mean operator?
Haha damn. Good eye. Even proofread it twice. 😑
