Baudot code

The Baudot code, invented by Émile Baudot, is a character set predating EBCDIC and ASCII. It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2 (ITA2), the teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII. Each character in the alphabet is represented by a series of bits, sent over a communication channel such as a telegraph wire or a radio signal. The symbol rate measurement is known as baud, and is derived from the same name.

History

Baudot code

Technically, five bit codes began in the 16th century, when Francis Bacon developed the cipher now called Bacon's cipher. However, this cipher is not a machine cipher and as such is not readily suitable for telecommunications.

Baudot invented his original code in 1870 and patented it in 1874. It was a 5-bit code, with equal on and off intervals, which allowed telegraph transmission of the Roman alphabet and punctuation and control signals. It was based on an earlier code developed by Carl Friedrich Gauss and Wilhelm Weber in 1834. It was a Gray code (when vowels and consonants are sorted in their alphabetical order), nonetheless, the code by itself was not patented (only the machine) because French patent law does not allow concepts to be patented.