> The term "baud" comes from the old "baudot" encoding which, if you
> will permit me to bypass thorough reference checks and go on my aging
> memory, was a 5 or 6 bit encoding used ages ago for datacomm (forget
> the 300 baud, this was when 110 was the rule).  The equations change
> a bit with reference to "bytes/sec" or more accurately "chars/sec"
>
FWIW, Baudot was a six bit code used for teletypes and telegrams.  One
bit was used for control (exactly what I don't remember), so it is really a
five bit
code.  There was an up shift and a down shift character to handle upper and
lower case.

Nick D.