-=> Quoting MIKE FARRILL to RICK COLLINS <=-
-=> FidoMail to 1:163/215, please.-=<
mf> If people want more speed, Why don't they just reduce the bits to
mf> 7 or 6? 
You could do that if the data you were sending used that character
set.  The one that comes to mind is 5-bit BAUDOT code - but you end
up with A-Z (uppercase only) and the requirement to include a FIGure
Shift code before sending numbers, and a LETter Shift code to go back
to letters again.  In other words, 1930's Teletype.
That's not as far out as you might think:  the 8250 UART (I don't
know about the 16550) will support 5 bits per character and one and
one-half stop bits.  But the UART in your modem probably won't. :-)
In fact, though, the bits that are eliminated in the error correction
schemes are the start bit and the stop bit - the number of data bits
remains unchanged at 8.
I once wrote a terminal program for a color computer that used a
home-built modem to communicate using Baudot or ASCII on a radio
teletype link.  The program had to convert the ASCII characters to
their equivalent Baudot values before sending them to the UART, and
naturally, the Baudot back to ASCII when it was received from the
UART.  And, you had to include the necessary letter and figure shifts
and the carrige return linefeed characters in the data stream as
well.
T'was fun!
TTFN. Rick.
Ottawa, ON 12 Apr 10:46 
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