Righto. To be fair I should be probably refer to the coded message as a cipher and the decoded message as the translation. Baudot’s original bit system was made for French, it got popular in France and then Britain and eventually the USA. It was later tweaked by another guy so the code put less wear on the machinery verse operators dexterity as Baudot had done. This is called Baudot-Murray code.
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- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldOPtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•And thats why we call it Baud Rate12·4 days ago
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldOPtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•And thats why we call it Baud Rate18·4 days ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ug5lUI-hs3s
This video shows a Baudot teletype machine and he explains the basic principles well. It also operates and he shows you how the electromagnet converts the signal pulses to a letter selection via linkages.
You can also hear how fast the signal is as it’s running. No way a human operator could tap that out. The first few decades of telegraphy were human controlled, hence why Morse’s code was popular since it was tailored for human abilities. Once telegraphy got established, lines were run and the technology was generating money you start to see automatic machines come around to speed things up.
The first automatic machines worked by punching the code out on a paper ribbon first, then you ran that message through a special telegraphy key. This allowed Morse code to be sent as fast as possible. Registers were common place since the beginning so recording the signal to be decoded to english was simple. This was the era of “battery rooms”, since it was all DC powered and a proper DC generator hadn’t come around yet. Also the era of rooms filled with operators, often women, coding messages into punch-card-ribbons to be sent and decoding register ribbon into english.
Post Civil War we see all of this mature into new coding methods, multiplexing (where Edison made his first fortune), binary transmission systems like Baudot code and eventually transmission of voice. Ironically, Alexander Graham Bell was working on a multiplexing telegraph device (harmonic telegraph that used 4 tuned forks to send multiple codes of various frequency that 4 tuned receiver forks could receive independently of each other across a single line) when he figured out voice could be sent.
One of these tuning forks metal reed had become struck to the electromagnet and Watson plucked it free. Bell, in another room, heard his devices corresponding fork undulate when it was plucked free. He didn’t hear the solid pulse you’d normally hear, he heard it undulate. Bell had studied hearing his whole life (his wife was deaf) so he understood immediately when he heard the undulation that sound could be sent electrically. So he gave up the harmonic telegraph (which didn’t work well because tuning forks were finicky as hell–it wouldn’t be until vacuum tubes came around that it became practical) and started working on the telephone.
Lots of fun history. A distinct period of innovation in the broader Industrial Revolution. When a guy who could understand mechanical movements could invent something that’d make him like $800,000.
I’ll inform the crackheads.
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldOPtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•And thats why we call it Baud Rate25·4 days ago
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 typewriter-letter-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.
The first ~10-20 years of telegraphy were the age of morse and typing out code by hand. Ironically, at first they used registers to record the code then translated it but during the Civil War operators figured out they could just transcribe by listening. Then “sounders” were introduced. Post Civil War is when automatic machines started coming around, the first ones using morse code but you’d punch the code into a strip of paper then run it along a set of contacts to send the code quicker than a human could.
During the 1870’s-1880’s the fun really began as multiplexing became possible and precision manufacturing/interchangeable parts allowed way more complex devices to be assembled. Adding machines, typewriters, teletype.
Even the stock ticker system uses a similar method to Baudot’s 5-bit binary. 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.
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldtoTenForward: Where Every Vulcan Knows Your Name@lemmy.world•That one scene in The Motion Picture6·4 days ago
Do we call the hybrid abomination Jamlian or Gillames?
So why is there a memory shortage if the data centers are using a type of ram that gamers can’t even use?
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What do you think of the expression "basic knowledge"?3·4 days ago
Generally yeah. That was one of the main selling points of cursive
Time to consider unconventional memory usage techniques.

Plenty of memory and processors. Thats the real haul. Sell that ram to gamers like crack cocaine.
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldOPtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•And thats why we call it Baud Rate81·4 days ago
Freincels (French Involuntary Celibates)
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldtoNot The Onion@lemmy.world•Microsoft executive vice president bemoans employees sending him "AI slop," saying "This is a doom loop."English8·4 days ago
Tell her to practice her cursive. Young people and machines can’t read it. That’ll come in handy in the coming forever everywhere war for humanity
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldtoNot The Onion@lemmy.world•Microsoft executive vice president bemoans employees sending him "AI slop," saying "This is a doom loop."English4·4 days ago
Actions = Consequences
Could one improve their scambling ability by becoming the president of the united states? Asking for a friend.
Isn’t most modern comput-o-communication done with fiber optics these days? And the power supply wires are often made from aluminum. Very little copper in them data centers what with the insatiable greed of their CEO’s.
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldOPtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•And thats why we call it Baud Rate21·4 days ago
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 say for sure he didn’t do that, what with being a successful Frenchman and all.
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldOPtoProgrammer Humor@programming.dev•And thats why we call it Baud Rate18·4 days ago
Haha damn. Good eye. Even proofread it twice. 😑
- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldtoLemmy Shitpost@lemmy.world•Reddit advertising "Real people" and "Real advice"6·4 days ago
Reddit “users”

- cardboardboxfort@lemmy.worldtoAsk Lemmy@lemmy.world•What do you think of the expression "basic knowledge"?25·4 days ago
I’m not wasting time sourcing a half dozen research papers on cursive handwriting. Sorry. Read up on the topic yourself instead of knee-jerk hating something you never practiced enough to get good at. Like I said, I was a shitty cursive writer in highschool and years later when I began practicing my cursive I got better and began enjoying it. It is useful. It’s a great excuse to not use your phone (spybot) for everything like making a grocery list. These are just facts.

Reddit is 80%+ bots so I don’t expect those accounts to shift platforms. But I do imagine some former reddit users will trickle over as it continues to alienate its fanbase with stupid choices like getting rid of old reddit.