page_title: Baudot code
section_title: Western Union
hierarchical_section_title: Baudot code / History / Western Union
caption_attribution_description: English: Keyboard of Teletype Model 15, Communications character set, 1944
context_page_description: The Baudot code is an early character encoding for telegraphy invented by Émile Baudot in the 1870s, It was the predecessor to the International Telegraph Alphabet No. 2, the most common teleprinter code in use until the advent of ASCII. Each character in the alphabet is represented by a series of five 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.
context_section_description: Murray's code was adopted by Western Union which used it until the 1950s, with a few changes that consisted of omitting some characters and adding more control codes. An explicit SPC (space) character was introduced, in place of the BLANK/NULL, and a new BEL code rang a bell or otherwise produced an audible signal at the receiver. Additionally, the WRU or "Who aRe yoU?" code was introduced, which caused a receiving machine to send an identification stream back to the sender.
caption: Keyboard of a teleprinter using the Baudot code (US variant), with FIGS and LTRS shift keys
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