Baudot is a character encoding system developed by Émile Baudot in the late 19th century. It was designed for telegraphy and uses a 5-bit code to represent letters and control characters, allowing for efficient communication over telegraph lines. The system can encode up to 32 different characters, making it suitable for transmitting text messages. The Baudot code laid the groundwork for later encoding systems, including ASCII and Unicode. It was widely used in early computer systems and telecommunications, influencing the development of modern data transmission methods. Its legacy continues in various forms of digital communication today.