XPost: alt.folklore.computers   
   From: ldo@nz.invalid   
      
   On 14 Nov 2024 03:42:44 GMT, Retrograde wrote:   
      
   > By 1874, the Frenchman Èmile Baudot created a 5-bit code to represent   
   > characters over a teleprinter line. Like some earlier systems, the code   
   > used two shift characters to select uppercase letters (LTRS) and figures   
   > (FIGS).   
   > This lets the 32 possible codes represent 26 letters, 10 digits, and a   
   > few punctuation marks. However, if the receiver missed a shift   
   > character, the message would garble badly. This was especially a problem   
   > over radio links.   
      
   You could hear such signals quite frequently on short-wave radio -- a   
   rapid series of tones alternating between two pitches -- much faster than   
   Morse code.   
      
   --- SoupGate-DOS v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)