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Morse Code Enters The 21st Century

Posted by simoniker on from the twiki-twiki dept.

N8TWJ writes "The International Telecommunications Union has decided to bring Morse Code into the 21st century by adding the loved (or hated?) - at (@) symbol. Lets hope the spammers don't start sniffing 20 meters for da-dit-da-dit-dah-dit..." According to the article, Paul Rinaldo, chief technical officer for the American Radio Relay League, says: "It's a pretty big deal... there certainly hasn't been any change [in Morse Code characters] since before World War II."

6 of 267 comments (clear)

  1. Obsolete? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I thought the Morse code was declared obsolete a few years ago.

    1. Re:Obsolete? by Trurl's+Machine · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Yes and np. You cannot "declare obsolete" any particular code - if you wan't to count in Roman numbers, you are free to do so (and I'm pretty sure there is an emacs macro to facilitate this). However, in 1999 Morse code indeed was withdrawn from "officlal" maritime distress communication. When you find yourself in deep caca on a sinking wessel, you are no longer obliged to yell "dee dee dee daa daa daa dee dee dee" to your satellite phone. In twenty first century, you can just scream "heeeeellllp!". That's what I call progress!

  2. Re:spelling it out is faster? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That wont work, figure an email address like

    cat@atnt.org
    which when transmitted letter by letter min morse
    code would in your case be;
    c a t a t a t n t . o r g

    where is the 'at'==@ in that letter sequence?

  3. Stupid Question by Drunken_Jackass · · Score: 4, Insightful

    ...but what is a dot in Morse code? You know - loser@aol[.]com. For that matter, what about things like _ and / or \? How would you know that the username is big.loser and not big_loser @aol.com.

    If they're just adding the @ now, what other symbols that are necessary for "communication in the 21 century"?

    --
    There are 01 types of people in this world. Those that understand binary, and me.
  4. Using the Word "AT" is Faster by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This wasn't a very good idea. Just using the word "AT" is faster than the new character, which is an "A" and a "C" run together into one letter. A "T" plus an inter-letter space is shorter than a "C".

    Therefore, this new character WAS NOT NECESSARY. The word "AT" can be used and the context will show that the "@" symbol was meant.

    73 de N8KH

  5. 21st century by QuasiDon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since email was one of the first things used on the internet, why would adding the @ symbol bring Morse Code into the 21st century? Wouldn't it just bring it later into the mid 20th century?