The value of the parameter nine. This parameter provides for the automatic insertion by the PAD of padding characters in the character stream transmitted to the start-stop DTE after the occurrence of a carriage return character. This allows for the printing mechanism for the start-stop DTE to perform the carriage return function correctly. A value between 0 and 255 will indicate the number of padding characters. When this parameter is 0, there will be no padding except that PAD service signals will contain a number of padding characters according to the data rate of the start-stop DTE.