Ralph Doncaster writes, ” The screen shot above is from picoUART running on an ATtiny13, at a baud rate of 230.4kbps. The new UART has several improvements over my old code. To understand the improvements, it helps to understand how an asynchronous serial TTL UART works first. Most embedded systems use 81N communication, which means 8 data bits, 1 stop bit, and no parity. Each frame begins with a low start bit, so the total frame is 1 start bit + 8 data bits + 1 stop bit for a total of 10 bits. Frames can be sent back-to-back with no idle time between them. The data is sent at a fixed baud rate, and when either the receiver or transmitter varies from the chosen baud rate, errors can occur.
See the full post on Nerd Ralph blog.