The key point here is that with the DEC Writer (LA36) DEC started to split the print speed (in cps) from the line interface speed (in baud as it was larger than an often character as it would have at least one start bit, one or more stop bits, and maybe a parity bit too).   Herein also lies another problem, the mechanical interface, be it how fast the carriage moved, or the head was positioned, etc, could be much longer than the single character transfer time.  As Paul mentioned on some mechanical devices without any buffering, the print might be random as the carriage moved the head.

Teletype made an amazing mechanical device that had a minimum amount of electronics in it.  By the time of the LA36, you start to see the microprocessor revolution and the use of cheap transistors to replace mechanical things to make faster/better devices with new features (like buffering and being able to have different speeds for data transfer and printing).   But you also start to see the distinction between the mechanics (the keyboard/printer) and things like the communications scheme become even more obvious and terminology starts to be used to address the specific part of the problem.