reference to fig2 with continuing reference to fig1 the client computing device 24 is illustrated as having a processor 70 a display 72 one or more input devices 74 e g keypad touchpad microphone etc a serial port 76 and a memory 78 the memory 78 represents both volatile and non volatile memory and is used to store programs 80 and an operating system 82 as an exemplary implementation the operating system is the windows ce operating system from microsoft corporation the windows ce operating system supports four different baud rates 19 2k 38k 56k and 115k fig2 shows a method for automatically detecting a baud rate at which the client computing device 24 is transmitting data these steps are performed for example in software by the baud rate detection system 60 at the host computer 22 at step 100 the baud rate detection system 60 waits for the client computing device to connect this connection may be a physical connection in which the client computing device is attached to a serial cable or placed in a cradle the connection may alternatively be non physical such as an ir infrared connection or an rf radio frequency connection once a connection is made the rate selector 62 determines whether.