[GreenKeys] 67 WPM shift

[Jim Haynes]

On Sun, 2 Jan 2011, George B. Hutchison wrote:
> I have a two-speed gearshift that came out of a model 35 KSR. The positions
> are 73.3 and 110 baud.
>
> Maybe Jim Haynes can explain 73.3 baud. I sure can't.
>
Not off the top of my head, but thinking about it, the military set the
standard for baud speeds as 75 multiplied by some power of two.  That's
why the standard speeds are 75, 150, 300...9600...38400 and up.  The
nonstandard 110 baud came about because of the desire for a 100 wpm 
machine using 8-level code.  It had to have two stop bits because one
was just too short for the mechanism to get stopped.  Perhaps if you have
to send ASCII and the fastest facility you have is a 75 baud carrier
channel then 73.3 works out to be easy.  If you have gears that give you
50 and 75 baud on a 5-level machine they would give you 73.3 and 110
baud on an 8-level machine.