On Fri, Feb 13, 2015 at 8:44 AM, <Paul_Koning at dell.com> wrote: Yes, but that s 8 bits total. I was referring to 7 bits, no parity, no fixed extra bit like a mark bit. paul I agree, I never saw correctly configured systems with anything less than 8 bits. 7 with parity (8 total) as Paul said, was pretty standard. particularly on modems. Early UNIX tty drivers used to assume it and pretty much always AND 0x7F with the input character. Clem