Glossary
Aperture The opening in an optical system defined by a lens or baffle that establishes the field
of view.
AIM The Automatic Identification Manufacturers Inc., a trade association.
ASCII American Standard Code for Information Interchange. A 7 bit-plus-parity code
representing 128 letters, numerals, punctuation marks, and control characters. It is a
standard data transmission code in the U.S.
Autodiscrimination The ability of an interface controller to determine the code type of a scanne d bar code.
After this determination is made, the information content is decoded.
Bar The dark element in a printed bar code symbol.
Bar Code Density The number of characters represented per unit of measurement
(e.g., characters per inch).
Bar Height The dimension of a bar measured perpendicular to th e bar width.
Bar Width Thickness of a bar measured from the edge closest to the symbol start character to
the trailing edge of the same bar.
Baud Rate A measure of the data flow or number of signaling events occurring per second. When
one bit is the standard “event,” this is a measure of bits per second (bps). For
example, a baud rate of 50 means transmission of 50 bits of data per second.
Bit Binary digit. One bit is the basic unit of binary information. Generally, eight
consecutive bits compose one byte of data. The pattern of 0 and 1 values within the
byte determines its meaning.