What Is Baud Barf?

Did you know the first known use of the term "baud barf" was in a 1992 Usenet post? I bet you didn't. Baud barf is a term for seemingly random or illegible ASCII characters generated by line noise or other means. These characters would appear on a text screen while operating a 1990s-era modem. The term "baud barf" is mainly associated with dial-up Internet situations where computers share the same phone lines. It's also known as line noise, and if you were to use it now, people would think you were super edgy and relaxed because they don't know what it means! Baud barf is caused by non-standard data transmitted over the phone line by the other computer or device connected to the same phone line. What seems like gibberish to the receiving computer is just line noise to the transmitting computer. The receiving computer cannot parse the non-standard data and displays it as a baud barf on the screen. Baud barf is the term given to a display screen that was supposed to show text but instead showed an unreadable string of characters. It typically happens on computers with PC-DOS or early Windows operating systems when someone picks up the phone and hears a line noise in the earpiece. The noise would cause the computer to misinterpret incoming messages as data, resulting in an unreadable mess of characters onscreen. It's called baud barf because it looks like the display screen is vomiting this useless information. You might use baud barf if you still use a dial-up modem to connect to the Internet. Baud barf is a term for connecting to the Internet over a telephone line. It's also known as dial-up Internet and is not just outdated. It's mostly obsolete. If you're still using dial-up Internet, you might as well live in the past (and eating bologna sandwiches). The decline of landline telephone systems has rendered baud barf an archaic phenomenon.