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Morse Coders Beat SMSers
dgnicholson writes "Jay Leno did a text off between two text messengers and two Morse coders. The Morse coders handily beat the young whippersnappers with time to spare. It might be a fun phone app to make a Morse code messenger, if you kept your headset in and had an external sender, could be interesting. Perhaps a Morse code Skype device."
Anyone using morse code on an even occasional basis should have guessed that it would cream the text messagers! There are three simple reasons: (1) A single character of Morse can be keyed in less time than a single character can be entered on the cell phone with the "TAP" method. (2) With the bug, there is no delay created by moving the finger from button to button. (3) Most importantly, however, the text message is time-shifted, whereas morse transmission is real-time. When the sender is done, the recipient is done also.
If Morse code is so much better than using text messaging, why doesn't everyone do it?
Rhetorical question. The answer, obviously, is that it is a pain in the ass to learn and gain any serious encoding/decoding speed.
It's a lot like typing (which most of us take for granted). Objectively, it is the fastest way to transcribe data. However, it requires quite a bit of practice to get up to a level fast enough to make it better and more useful than normal writing.
Free falling from 15,000 feet is faster than landing in a plane from the same height. Doesn't mean you want to go ahead with it.
Someone already wrote an application for Nokia phones that lets you write your SMS by using Morse code.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
For those with Nokia Series 60 phones, here's an app that will let you type in SMS using morse code: http://laivakoira.typepad.com/blog/2005/05/morse_t exter.html
I'm Trappped at Berkeley.
http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/05/ 06/2145200&from=rss
Isn't the idea of news that it should be *new*? Or does this article enlighten us in ways the May 6th one didn't?
It's ironic that this comes right at the same time that the search is down and /. is relying on google for everything...
Original news here.
int cents = 0;
cents += 2;
An employee suggested to me that we use this encoding scheme for a few offices here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using morse code instead of a more complicated RF protocol. So I decided to let him train 5 offices to see how the employees got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using it in his wireless and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client superhets?
Once he'd got the radios up and running with CW we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: Morse was a pretty good replacement for SMS and the users could still do their work as normal.
Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received. Users could not find things they were used to (like the encoding for SOS) or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with SMS. The constant harrasment by the FCC became more of a day job than my own. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when his wrist suddenly broke and corrupted his message.
Needless to say, Samual Morse offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee remove the Morse Code from the radios and lets just say he's not with us anymore.
just say dot for dot
and dash for dash
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Maybe I will... Some day... When I learn morse code... Or maybe I'll just have another beer instead. :-)
Done before. You know this was reported on numerous other tech sites and blogs days before it was reported here. Here's a question: Why should I keep coming back to /. if the news is repeated, slow and bias? Seriously. It isn't meant as a troll but a serious question. This site needs improving. Perhaps we need an ask slashdot article up where we try to throw up some ideas in the air to improve this site because its going down the drain.
Morse code was created for the purpose of sending text over REALLY low bandwidth. Cell phones were created to talk to people. The idea of entering text with a numeric keypad was a wart they hung on the side of the phone when they realized that a full keyboard wouldn't work.
Personally, I just don't understand the appeal of text messaging. Maybe that marks me as an old fogey (27), but I just don't need my tendonitis to get any worse, TYVM.
Yes, those cunning editors have done it again.
Here's the original submission.
As to the Skype idea, I have no clue how the blogger came up with the idea that Morse with Skype would be any use whatsoever. The point of Skype is to provide a VoIP application that anyone can use.
Where's the Kaboom?
There's supposed to be an Earth-shattering Kaboom.
Avatar from the clip: pwn3d!
...and yeah, this is old news. HamSexy.com linked it the day of.
Didn't we already have this story posted on /. some time before?
I smell a dupe!
In Soviet Russia, Soviet Russia jokes make YOU!
Both a dupe and really old news.
or.. .- .-- . ... --- -- .
whatever.
Lameness filter
TF?
It's already possible to send morse code on TCP connecting to a server: http://www.dallas.net/~jvpoll/pgms/SimpleInetMorse Enc.html
And I'm pretty sure there are other solutions.
"You superiour intellect is no match for our puny weapons" - The Simpsons
As a braille user I can tell you that using a 6-dot braille keyboard is a mightty economical way to type.
Does anyone know of a cell phone that has such a feature?
8.4 MB WMV
jesus christ slashdot, you suck.
To quote the immortal Rocky the Flying Squirrel:
"Again?"
"Derp de derp."
The original story was similar, but it's a different event. The first time, it was one morse coder versus one girl, and Jay Leno had nothing to do with it.
This may prove that Jay Leno uses a lot of old recycled ideas, but it's not really a dupe.
..once you start adding punctuation, formatting and emoticons, how do they fare?
"dot dash dot, dot, dot dash dash dot, dot, dot dash, dash" from a month ago?
slashDOT thinks morse code is ascii art and won't post it, so I had to spell dot and dash out...so on slashDOT morse code is slower...
This is stupid and shouldn't even be on the front. How is this interesting, important or relevant in any way? I guess it's late anyways.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
...lazy ass editors.
Disregarding send time, consider the read time. If a person on the receiving end had never seen sms shorthand or m.code before, which do you think would be faster to read? Which would be comprehended faster, again, by a novice to either option.
shine up his chin with baby oil
flash a laser off of it
divert planes from restricted airspace
Yeah, great, new feature for Nokia phones, instead of SMS, they now offer morse code to send messages, I can really see everyone jumping at the chance of getting one of those. This is a real, lets compare apples with potatoes kind of thing, and just goes to show what the media will come up with when they've cant think of anything else to put on!
--Imagine every Thursday shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers.
Lameness filter encountered. Post aborted!
Reason: Please use fewer 'junk' characters.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
dotdot dotdotdashdot / dashdotdashdash dashdashdash dotdotdash / dashdotdashdot dotdash dashdot / dotdashdot dot dotdash dashdotdot / dash dotdotdotdot dotdot dotdotdot / dashdotdashdash dashdashdash dotdotdash / dashdot dot dot dashdotdot / dash dashdashdash / dashdashdot dot dash / dotdashdotdot dotdash dotdot dashdotdot
how many people have noticed that the default tone for text messages beep-beep, beep-beep-beep, beep-beep is actually the Morse for SMS?
Someone check this news for an expiration date.
Firstly, the morse code they used was the final optimised product. It basically uses huffman-like compression for english only. Thus texting other languages using morse would not be so efficient.
Secondly they used TAP method which is outdated and inefficient. Predictive text input is much faster. Also, the US is not the big SMS country. It hardly has GSM! More people still use outdated devices like pagers.
Thirdly they also tested the transport medium. An SMS may be relayed faster via different networks (sometimes immediate) and can be re-read if something was missed (unless ticker-tape is used). This is not fair, as for very long distance morse messages one can have intermediaries as well which would lengthen the process considerably.
Fourthly, most people cannot send morsecode while receiving it, thus also making asynchronous conversation slower. (And you cannot receive morse from multiple sources sil
I've recently been to Japan and had the rare privelege seeing a teenage school-girl on a Train sitting and texting on two phones at the same time! Beat that!
The standard Nokia bell for SMS actually spells SMS in morse. Yeah I know there will be two category of people, those who already figured that who will say it's obvious etc, and those who haven't but will be ashamed not to have and will act just like the former.
\u262D = \u5350
You can encode, decode and listen to morse here
Oh, and try setting the speed at 40 wpm before you start thinking it's easy!
..to comprehend the speeds of CW morse coders. With all these new features (camera, mp3 player, allmighty software) some phones take up to 30 seconds to start responding from bootup. So far, siemens M55 is the worst case I've seen. Sometimes if freezes for one minute at the "Speed is.. Siemens" animation :P
:P
Though it would be fun to see message option "Send over morse"
No more I say.
(why do these things always sound less funny once you press preview?)
Believing something doesn't make it true. Not believing something doesn't make it false.
Posted here long ago; but the link in this article is more comprehensive.
OMFG, Slashdot's "Lameness filter" just prevented me from posting a comment on this story in morse code. I cry censorship, someone call the ACLU!
Try it, if you don't believe me.
Engadget is reporting that there's a Morse Text utility for Series 60 phones. the original story, Preview, download it here
SPANKED
So here we have two people with extensive training and practise on their chosen method versus those without. Gee, big supprise they won.
You have to understand that those who still do morse code with any regularity are serious enthusiasts and/or ex professionals who did it for a living back when it was popular. Now you take people with this kind of training and put them against a couple of teen amatures, gee, I wonder why they'd be faster.
What does that have to do with anything?
One also has to consider the relitive dificulty of the two systems. Morse code is something that takes a good deal of time and practise to learn. It's not intuitive, you have to memorize the signal patterns, and then practise to improve speed. Some never get good at it and have a perpetually sloppy fist. Text messaging was designed to be accessable to anyone, with no prior training. Consideration was given to ease, not to speed.
I mean I bet I could develop a numeric keypad to text system that would easily beat Morse Code when someone was trained. I'd do it by dividing keys into letters as is done now, but doing a dual press system. You press once to indicate group, again to indicate specific letter. So on teh system on the phone to do a k you'd press 5 then 2, fifth key, 2nd character. Of course it'd be remapped to make it more efficient.
You could map the entire alaphabet to just 2 rows (6 keys) and have all letters transmitted with 2 presses. A trained perons could learn to do something like this very quickly, simply use two fingers, probably the thumbs, with minimal movement to signal a message.
Also as others have pointed out this test has an additonal problem: The Morse isgnal is being sent in realtime. An operator signals, the other recieves. That's not the way an SMS message works. You key it in and submit it to the network. It then takes time to route to its destination. 5 seconds or so is a pretty good routing time. IT can be far more, it's not designed to be realtime transmission.
However in this video, it's quite clear you ahve two professionals against two amatures. The code operator is transmitting very fast, with a very regular fist. The SMS kid is pecking away very slowly. You could easily find someone using the current SMS entry system that could go far faster than him. It is amusing televisoin, but no real test of any kind.
...can a simpsons quote be modded off-topic on a humor thread.
Strength, raw speed, and reflexes slowly get worse, but timing and coordination get better as you age. Odds are that if they tried a similar contest using only CW, but with the same age difference as in this contest, the older group would win again.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
thanks, pretty funny. i like this theme and i thought you did a great job.
funniest one yet, actually.
I think we've seen this before~
Reminds me of people who played counterstrike and bound their mouse keys to back and forward, and had keyboard keys for their firing. Default is fine for most, custom great for the übergamers. I never found out whether it was better, as I spent too much time respawning.
[% slash_sig_val.text %]
Or this goes to show what Slashdot will come up with when they can't think anything else to put on.
I live in Japan, and probably send twenty text messages for each call that I make. Though I must admit, the Japanese software seems better than what I remember in the states. The word-completion is usally really clever if I am typing in Japanese. Also, typing in Japanese is intrinsically easier because in general, each kana corresponds to two English letters. I wish people would use this service more in the states, for all of the reasons people have been mentioning. Despite the enormous number of cell phones in Japan relative to the US, you are forced to listen to people yapping away on them far, far less often. This might be my favorite element of Japanese society, I swear.
I've always found it amusing that the 'international' morse code alphabet (linked to in the parent) lacks äöåéíáóú.
I can understand that yes it wouldn't encapsulate all languages... but hey guys, it could at least try and encapsulate the Latin, Romantic and Germanic languages a tad better.
And something like would be very useful in Morse, as you could truncate the length of a question simply by indicating in advance that a statement was a question.
This is all irrelevant of course... what kind of idiot is going to morse over skype! - Purely rhetorical, I don't want to know the answer!
this was on Newsround (children's news on BBC) about a month ago.
What a nonsensical idea. What moron would spend their time on a Rube Goldberg-esque device that only pimply geeks who don't know how to swim would use?
I'd think the central idea of huffman coding is a tradeoff, to use shorter notations for frequent message parts, while accepting slower performance on rare messages.
SMS notations do this too. Replacing 'for' by '4'.
SMS notations are optimized for the kind of messages that people send with them, and people adapt their messages to suit the weaknesses and strengths of SMS interface. For random text, a plain keyboard beats SMS keyboard.
So you can design a message where SMS is slow. And you can design a message where morse is slow.
You can take a typical SMS message (BHME@2 = be home at two o'clock), and send it as morse. I suppose morse will perform a bit faster but not very much because morse is optimized for plain language which has lots of vowels.
So imagine a morse that is optimized for SMS messages.
That would make the speed you are sending it with useless. So even if you took 1 minute to do the morse and one hour for sms, I still would be able to get the message faster on sms.
Also as I understand morse sends the moment you type it in. sms does not do that. You first type it in and then it is send.
On the same logic I can proove that a typewriter is faster then a computer, because with the coputer the typing is just as fast, but you still have to type
, walk to the printer and take out the paper.
Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
Are Morse coders more efficient than C++ coders?
-.. ..- .--. .
dat dit dit
dit dit dat
dit dat dat dat
dit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I realize you septic tanks don't use texting, let alone the dizzy heights of T9, but let me just say.
T9!
Duh.
K.
This news is pretty damn old and was reported in Indian Newspapers like a month ago. Well, it came in UK Times too. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-2- 1571664,00.html
SMS's really suck. They are too damn annoying in public places where cellphones ring at random. This is probably the most annoying technology ever!!!
A driver with an Ordnance Survey map and Silva compass finds three destinations quicker than a driver with a GPS.
..... whenever an uncustomised Nokia phone receives a text message, it plays a series of three short tones, two long ones and three short ones again. Di-di-dit, da-dah, di-di-dit. Any idea what that could be?
Even with a simple, manual telegraph key, the odds are in favour of Morse {with its surprisingly-modern idea of assigning the shortest codes to the commonest letters, and the fact that you only need to move in one dimension to work it} over a keypad where multiple functions are assigned to the same key. On Sagem phones {as opposed to Nokia and Samsung}, the matter is further compounded by the fact that the letters change as you hold down the key, and you let go to stop at the desired one. On Nokias and Samsungs, you have to make an additional keystroke {or allow a timeout to elapse} between successive letters on the same key.
The Morse telegraph was designed to be very good at sending dots and dashes. It required a greater mental effort on the part of the human operator; but the user interface was simple, elegant and did not add unnecessary complication of its own, so it was the operator and not the machine that imposed the limitation on working rate. When the words themselves became an obstacle, it became common for telegraph operators to use abbreviations; some of which have carried over to more modern media. C U L8R ME N H R OFF 2 WDS 4 SUM SW17!
And, finally
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I've just read no less than three comments below, pointing out that this story has been on slashdot before.
"... and more and more now there are all kinds of electronic goodies available" -- Pink Floyd 1972
The text messaging guy had a personal record of sending a 160 character message in 57 seconds. That means 2.8 characters per second.
In the show, the message was "I just saved a bunch of money on my card" which is a 40 character message. I timed how long it took the morse-coder to send it: about 20 seconds. That converts to 2 characters per second.
So I guess, on a good day, the sms'er is still able to beat the morse-coder.
My karma ran over your dogma
this is old news... we already have cell phone aps out there...
/. editors... please at least TRY and keep up
unrelated:
Jeremy Logan's Website.
Well with morse you don't need to send while receiving to have a two way interruptable conversation! With QSK mode of operation, the receiver is active even between dits and dahs. This allows the sender to be interrupted mid- sentance. The fun factor goes up rapidly using QSK! dah dit dit, dit,, dah dit dah, dit dit dit dit dah, dah dah dit dit, dit dit, dit dit dit dah
I wonder if the SMS senders have used T9. It really speeds up typing, especially in non-agglutinating languages (e.g. English).
Real life is overrated.
All of the posts here on slashdot seem to agree that the International Code (Morse Code is used on messaging systems where relays click out the beginning and end of each dot and dash. Oscillators which produce tones enabled the code we know today) is only useful if you use it a lot, that it would only be useful for advanced users. Well, simply put, the case being made is that for advanced users CW might be faster and worth learning.
Not to mention, if morse code pick up as an input method for SMS that would allow new and exciting input devices like bluetooth enabled morse code keys disguised as watches and rings.
I cant even begin to adress all the FUD coming off this discussion. Yes, CW takes practice. No, it is not just for the elite Ham or old fogey. CW does have 26 letters, 10 numerals, and punctuation. It can be altered for other languages with phonetic alphabets. You could use CW as an alternative method of text entry, or record the tones and play them back.
I do wish that CW would become a standard alternative for text input, it would be good for physical portability and not a hard library to implement. No, I do not know CW, but I would learn it if it meant I could enter a msg without looking.
but, but, you maybe are using a diff. set :-)
I don't claim I know more than I know, and if you know you know more than I know, then by all means, let me know.
I take it that they didn't add on the time it takes the recipient of the morse code to go:
WTF is this?
The twat is sending morse code on a F*cking mobile.
FFS! I'm going to have to look this crap up on Google.
Got a converter. Lets see dot dot dash dot dash. Damnit missed the place.
(Phones Morse sender) FFS Bill can't you just send an SMS like normal people?
Deleted
I loaded the video and tried typing (using t9 on a Nokia phone) and in Swedish "jag spårade just en massa pengar på min bil för säkring" in almost exactly the same time they did. Ok, may send a lot of SMS but I'm NOT the fastest by far I imagine so I'm sure someone should be able to beat them (and spelling correctly) if they have sufficent training and a phone with larger keys...
Try it yourself.
I just SMS'd the same message "I just saved a bunch of money on my car insurance" about three times faster than the morse coders... on my Treo.
Is it cheating that I have a full keyboard to use?
Whoever stated that signature sizes should be limited to one hundred and twenty characters can just go ahead and kiss my
So how about giving mobile phones a Morse input mode, hacking at the 1 and 0 keys rather than playing around with the whole 3D keyboard? (2d layout, with each button having several letters)
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
Morse code last year officially stopped being used on the ocean waves. But I hear that on the canary islands they have a messaging system that uses whistles. Apparently you can have a quite good conversation using this technique over vast distances. SMS vs Morse vs One man and his dog http://www.mirabilis.ca/archives/001284.html
because it can be converted to plain text automatically, duh.
So, those into Morse can use it and enjoy its speed, whereas those not willing to learn it don't have to.
Bert
Who bets that even Morse buffs can read plain text faster than Morse code
Japan really doesn't have it, or rather, it is so fundamentally different here in nature that it really doesn't feel like swearing. My personal favorite: Goddamnmotherfuckingsonofabitch!
"Why should I keep coming back to /. if the news is repeated, slow and bias?"
To learn that its spelled "biased"?
But please. Do go on with your rant. Whatever it was about.
I hope this doesn't set off more vi vs. Morse code debates.
At my maximum I could probablyu key 30WPM in morse code. Today that's probably 20WPM but still fast enough.
I hate the cell phone keypad for SMS. T9 makes it mildly more acceptable but it'd be cool if I could morse a message using a single key on the cell phone.
Hmmmm...
From your linked page:
1, 4, 7, or * - Dot
2, 5, 8, or 0 - Dash
3, 6, 9, or # - Space
Left arrow - Dot
Right arrow - Dash
OK key - Space
C key - Delete last letter
Well... A real morse code app would only rely on 1 button, wouldn't it?
Looking at the video, it takes the Morse guys approximately 20 seconds to transmit the message. I can also gather that the text message was typed in without predictive text input, which is significantly slower. I just did a test myself and was able to write the given sentence in 15 seconds with predictive text input, and I'm not even a particularly fast texter. Of course you still need to add network delay (+ SMS center delays) to that, so it wasn't a fair comparison to begin with. But Morse code isn't that fast, really.
This is called "making it up as you go along"
"Predictive text input is much faster."
Actually predictive text input is no faster. See? I can make stuff up too!
"Also, the US is not the big SMS country."
Uh...which matters because...uh... our champion SMS users are not as good as "their" champion SMS users? What? Huh?
"It hardly has GSM!"
Yes, because SMS over CDMA is so much slower. Because it doesn't use the dixie-helmann-thingy compression that ...uh... the morse code thingy uses.
"More people still use outdated devices like pagers."
Yes, which really hurts SMS texting rates!
"Thirdly they also tested the transport medium."
And this is important because our networks are slower than the Japanese networks because uh... the dixie-helman-mayonnaise compression that is umbiqitious...uh...pagers used... ummm... and why, we hardly have GSM!
"and can be re-read if something was missed"
Yes, because I might've missed something in that SMS message that said "CU L8R, LOL!!!!!"
"This is not fair, as for very long distance morse messages one can have intermediaries as well which would lengthen the process considerably."
Well, it might have been fairer but they didn't use the Dixie-Helman...thingy that morse code has for uh...non-English languages.
"thus also making asynchronous conversation slower"
Oh hell, just call the other person on the phone, and if they're not there, leave a message. My way is fastest of all.
"I've recently been to Japan and had the rare privelege seeing a teenage school-girl on a Train sitting and texting on two phones at the same time! Beat that!"
I was recently watching my daughter use AIM talking to 5 people at a time on AIM.
I win.
Oh. She was using that Dixie-Hellman-Mayonaisse thingy you keep whining about.
Why I prefer SMS over Morse code:
I don't have to remember any encoding rules.
Why I prefer phone calls over SMS:
I don't have to remember how to spell.
Why I prefer silence over phone calls:
I don't have to remember to be polite or feign interest.
Misquote: Done before. You know this sentiment has been reported on numerous other /. threads. Here's a question. Why should I keep coming back to /. if my post are repeats of my previous posts, complaints and whines? Seriously. It isn't meant as a serious question, but a troll. This post needs improving. Perhaps we need an ask slashdot article up where we try to vomit some ideas in the air (use an umbrella) to improve this post because its[sic] going down the drain.
Have a look at CWirc, it rocks.
Brent J. Nordquist N0BJN
dot dash dash dash dash dash dot dash dot dash .dash dot dot dot / dot dot dash dot dot dot dash dot dot
didto.. we have seen this before haven't we...--
The Wolfkin
I thought that show died years ago.
SMS is not about speed. If you want fast communication, you call and speak. The biggest advantage of SMS is clear, delayable output. No "sorry, I didn't understand whether that was 78 or 7A" problems known from voice mail, no "can't talk to you, call me later" known from normal calls. Easy, non-obstrusive, quite fast. ...which all leads to conclusion - SMS is fast to read, Morse is fast to send. What about an app to input text using morse code, and then send it as sms? Use just one key to enter data, and do it faster than using all 15 or so, if you want, and whoever you send it to, can read plain text. And you can make corrections if you make a mistake too.
Morse Code loses all these advantages: Compare number of illiterate to people not knowing morse code. NOT easy. Requires the opposite side to listen all the time - NOT non-obstrusive, and still confusing a dash with a dot if you don't pay enough attention causes mistakes. The other side can't stop listening anytime, like you can stop reading a SMS and resume later. Unless the output is drawn, not replayed... and I guess reading text is much faster than reading morse code.
(plus, how was the time measured? Time spent on typing+reading vs time spent on keying the message in+listening? When sender types SMS, receiver does other stuff. When receiver reads, sender is free already...)
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
English is only the international language if you're interested in international commerce, computing, science, academics or politics.
There are probably some other very important international fields that use some other language more.
While I'm sure Jay found it funny that a ancient (by electronics)technology beat out the latest gadgets, that's not the real advantage of MC. A fast typist with a big keyboard might beat a fist, but MC's advantage is that it can get through when a cell phone wouldn't even get a dial tone.
Big EM pulse, no problem, just crank up transmitter power? Want to do it without emitting radio waves? Flashing light. Need to send it to someone underwater? Vary the shaft rotatations.
That's what radiomen on submarines (FBM) needed to learn code - if all else fails, MC would get through.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
The sms is an asychron service, which allows you to send messages even whene there is no receiver available.
Morse Code is more like a synchronous transfer method. Also it needs some learning first. And you need good ears or fast eyes. So the sms has some advatages in normal kids environments, like "music clubs", bars, discotheques etc.
Joe Sixpack can hardly spell right and you want him to use MC (or more to the point; you want him to learn morse code)? Heh.
Texting may be slow but it's something my mother and my 10-year-old nephew can relate to without having them take hours to learn a new method of communications.
Is the concept of MC being faster than texting funny? To a point but too many luddites are going to take this as a sign that technology is for dolts and older systems are more efficent. Just what we need, more idiots on the street going around spouting a misinformed "joke" that they take as some deep truth.
Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
The telegraph revolutionized world communications because it connected the world instaneous when before it took days to send a message across continents (outside of some military horse and fire signalling methods). Contrast the America learnign within hours of Lincoln's death, compared to the Battle of New Orleans fought a few decades before, fought a *week* after the War of 1812 peace treaty was signed because communications were so slow.
Furthermore it revolutionized business methods. Installing wires all over the place required large organizations and capital. The telegraph promoted the rise of corporations and banks (though the simulataneous development of railroads pushed these innovations harder). Plus crooked investor advisors found new ways to fleece ignorant investors. Their shananigans make the dot.com crash look like a picnic!
http://freshmeat.net/projects/cwirc/
BTW, Chuck Adams, the one who desiged the course, is one of the worlds fastest CW operators. He is a real authority on teaching CW and has taken countless hours putting this course together.
http://puffin.tamucc.edu/k7qo/
We tried working with Morse
An employee suggested to me that we use Morse on a few machines here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using it for our employee's day-to-day communication. So I decided to let him install the teletyper onto 5 machines to see how the users got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using it on his system and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client machines?
Once he'd got the machines up and running with Morse we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: Morse was a pretty good replacement for SMS and the users could still do their work as normal.
Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from users who could find things they were used to or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with SMS messages. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when Morse suddenly had an error reading from our intranet file server and corrupted his project.
Needless to say, Samuel Morse offered no support whatsoever. I made the employee uninstall Morse from the machines and lets just say he's not with us anymore.
I'm in atlantic Canada. One day after finishing a QSL on 20 metres I heard a morse signal down in the noise. Out of curiosity I started to copy it and heard my callsign!
A guy in Hawaii running 1.5 watts.
Morse was used for simplicity of equipment and ability to communicate in absurdly poor conditions. The largest problem is that it relies on practiced operators. Five minutes and I can learn how to send and read SMS. It takes months of practice to read morse.
de VE9MKS
Julius Caesar with and Aldis Lamp!
How does one go about sending SMS messages from a computer (without using provider websites)?
THIS THING CAN TURN ON A DIME, MACROSSZERO STYLE ALSO FUCK BETA, ~NYORON
Secondly they used TAP method which is outdated and inefficient. Predictive text input is much faster.
Predictive text input is also patented until 2015, so it's not a fair comparison with Morse code.
We don't know what we would do with out you stating the obvious to us!
Don't Vote for Norm Dicks! http://www.nodicks2008.com Another nutless dirtbag that voted for the FISA bill!
As an aside of the aside, the hidden benefits to the company (the one paying for the text messaging!) include maintaining auditable records, communicating with multiple people, and being able to recall the message for your own review.
I can't seem to find the Morse to Serial adapter I need to print my Morse Code message.
Why cut IT when your office space costs $3/sf? gibso
I disagree with your statement that pagers are outdated. I work in a SCIF (Secure Compartmented Information Facility), and *no* phones or PDAs are ever allowed inside.
How do people reach me?
They page me. One-way pagers are allowed.
I also have my meeting reminders sent to me as a page.
There is no other RF device I can wear in a SCIF.
-- Andyvan
The biggest problem with Morse (and the failure of Morse teaching systems that don't recognize this) is that it's an aural language (sound and time) and you're representing it as a visual language (with . and -.)
...---... but rather dididit dah dah dah dididit.
You need to be saying the sound and not the picture of it.
It's not
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens.
I'd like to see a bluetooth keyer, allowing an operator to wirelessly send morse code over their cell phone.
;^)
I think it would look a bit odd though, if you saw several people at a dance club on a saturday night with their "smart coctails" and a morse code key on the table
Ken
Yes, EXACTLY. I see a news story smack the front page of my favorite news site and think wow can't wait for the /. discussion on this one... sometimes its already on /., sometimes its not, but eventually if its important enough it will make it there.
:)
THIS story is truely important, but the reasons why are for another post. Which I shall post now.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
This story is important not only because Morse code is demonstrated, atleast in this fashion, to still be relevant 170 years later, but also because we are on the cusp of a new innovation in mobile phone text messaging technologies: Morse code cellphone input for text messaging. As another poster already pointed out there is third party app already available for symbian based phones to do text messaging with morse input and its only a matter of time before we start seeing this built into cellphones from the start bringing MORSE CODE BACK FROM THE GRAVE.
...--... or SMS when a text alert comes through and also there is a Nokia ringtone that has morse code in it as well. Further proof: Nokia has filed patents for morse code related technologies.
ALL CAPS. YES.
Its just so insanely interesting to me that cellphones are now on the cusp of reviving Morse code and I plan on doing everything I can to promote this idea to make sure the cellphone companies hear it. One for the love of Morse but two because I'd love to be able to both send and receive text messages in Morse-- imagine the cellphone vibrating out in Morse code the text messages you've just received so you don't have to take your eyes off the road, or look at the phone in the middle of a meeting. Interestingly enough Nokia has pioneered informative Morse code messages on cellphones-- their SMS alerts can be set to send
It's coming. Like it or not, Morse code is going to take over the world. Again.
...unfortunately no one can be told what The Mat^H^H^HGoatse is...they must experience it for themselves...
Is /. just a gathering place for other site's old news? If you frequent boingboing.net, you probably noticed that this SMS vs. Morse Code article is almost 2 weeks old. I've since read plenty of follow-up articles about applications that let you SMS in morse. And just two stories down /.'s front page is the Oxytocin article, again posted at least a day earlier on boingboing. /. is great but it really detracts from my interest when the news isn't new.
I think
I reached 30 words per minute in high school. I am now 43 and still an active ham radio operator. I no longer write anything but the call sign, signal report, QTH, and the name of who I am talking to. It works in my brain just like a second language. The proof: I cannot send morse code and talk at the same time. It is impossible. Obviously the same language part of the brain works with morse code and English speaking. Perhaps my experiences will shed some light on why morse code operators are so damn fast.
Thanks, Rob
the Semaphore version of Wuthering Heights!
Hard to tap out a JPEG in morse ;)
Morse simply defines the on/off pulses that must go out on the airwaves.
How the operator selects those pulses is irrelevant, whether it be a classic straight key, a "bug", or a keyboard connected to a PC running a Morse keyer program.
I haven't watched the video yet, but it sounded like these ops were using "bugs", which are a specific type of two-button keyer. Move the paddle left, and it starts sending out repeated dashes. Move it right, and it starts sending out repeated dots. (I might have left/right switched there, but you get the idea.) It's a two-way switch which can essentially be considered two buttons, but the end result is still morse code.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
but I'll admit that the speed maxes out around 20-25 wpm for skilled users with one so it would have made it a closer race. Remember, though, that the CE operators didn't use any abbreviations.
:-)
If a "Bug", which is a mechanical semi-automatic key that makes the dots automatically, is allowed, then 50 wpm is quite possible for a reasonably skilled operator. The record for sending and receiving is 72 wpm set in 1943 by the famous Ted MacElroy. That was with a bug as electronic keyers didn't exist then.
I definitely agree with parent that learning the code from a table and listening to the dots and dashes individually is a bummer. Learn the sound of the letters. Then, as others have observed, when you get to around 25-30 wpm and above, the recognition is at the word level. It's really pretty cool. I've been using code since 1958, but not as regularly as I used to.
I also used digital data communication via ham radio back in the 60s. I had a model 15 teletype machine (5-bit Baudot code) with a tube type modem connected to my transmitter and receiver. Lots of fun.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
And if they, as you say, compared morse to multitap instead of T9 (predictive input) then the comparison is worse than useless.
For a fair test of T9, you would have to take into account waiting ten years while the patent runs out in order to start sending the message. The current version of Morse code was invented in 1848.
It would about as successful as trying to force a childbirth between Jessica Simpson and Pee-Wee Herman.
Be sure to remember the Programmers Prayer
it's interesting that this article showed up now.. i just added a thing to the front page of my website where you can type a message and hit "GO" and it beeps it in morse code at me at home!
It's saddening that some basic things still need to be said.
I can't count how many people have nearly hit me because they couldn't pay attention to the road. Why? Because they were on the damned phone.
Now I'm not really a defender of SMS or anything. But these tests are so unscientific. This one may be, I didn't read what it said, I'm just deciding based on the fact that they probably had to people well trained in Morse Code and two people who've never used a cell phone. And never mind that SMS is 10x easier to learn than Morse code. And don't get me wrong. This doesn't bother me as much as that shit about pigeons being faster than the internet, but it's close.
the toothpaste is frozen
The biggest difference here was in the user interfaces. Given identical user interfaces for transmission, the SMSer would've won for a long transmission, because SMS is FAR faster in terms of a communications system. Once the message is composed, it takes a fraction of a second to send.
If you wish to compare systems with similar channel bandwidth (50 Hz), then the two morse coders would've been totally owned by another pair of hams with laptops running PSK31.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
"An employee suggested to me that we use this encoding scheme for a few offices here as an evaluation. [...] I made the employee remove the Morse Code from the radios and lets just say he's not with us anymore."
You kicked an employee out because an evaluation that he suggested didn't work out? That is, pardon my French, completely fucked. The whole reason you do evaluations is so that you don't end up in a position where new products put people's job on the line.
Apart from anything else, from now on if an employee suddenly discovers a wireless protocol that at a stroke will double productivity, halve costs and save small kittens from drowning, do you think they're going to tell you about it? No, they're going to hide behind conformity, in the hope that that way they'll keep their jobs.
Congrats, you've singlehandedly halted improvement of your company's network infrastructure. I'm sure it'll mean far less trouble for you, right up to the point where an innovative competitor buys you up and fires everyone.
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
I hate to break this to you, buddy, but Jay Leno's show is a COMEDY show. It's possible, just possible, that this stunt might have been for COMEDIC purposes and isn't a true scientific study.
Criminy, lighten up.
Comment of the year
No, you're reading it wrong. 'J' is ".---", not ".--.". In addition, you missed the "." at the end for 'E'.
The correct moorse code is DUPE.
(The helper text at the bottom is a mistranscription.)
We just had this a few weeks ago. Come on, editors, get with the fucking program.
Please use fewer junk characters? -.-. .-. .- .--.!
Slashdot's behind the times, I guess.
Quite a curious contest, considering that morse code was never intended to be speedy. One of the only reasons morse code is still utilized is because of the *distance* that one can transmit unhindered (around the world with a few watts of power, if the atmospheric conditions are right)...
I am not a number - I am a free man!
Over the last few years, I've sent a good number of text messages, but by no means am I a record-setter in terms of speed. However, using T9, I raced the video of Jay Leno, and I beat both the SMSer and the morse coder with time to spare.
If you're interested in fast but portable data entry, I suspect even the Morse coders couldn't beat someone with a chording keyboard. This interesting little device is meant for one hand, with 3 buttons for the thumb and one button for each of the other fingers. Pressing the buttons in different combinations selects different letters, and the letter is entered when the keys are released. I've seen practiced users typing at the equivalent of 40 WPM on them.
And see how they compare as well.
"All great wisdom is contained in .signature files"
My Morse speed, which used to be better than 90wpm 40 years ago, is now only about 55wpm, but it still beats the "grafitti" that my Palm uses. I wrote a small app that takes notes in Morse, and it made my PDA useful again.
I'm not buying another cell phone until I find one that combines the advantages of my PDA with the apps of the cell phone, and being able to write small apps like this are high on my criteria list.
I'm honestly suprised that Jay Leno even knew to try sms against morse code. Being an amateur radio operator myself, I know that morse is rarely if ever used anymore. You don't need to learn it to get your 'basic' technician license anymore, and the FCC is considering dropping it from the general, and maybe even advanced class licenses also. It is sad that such a quick, and efficient mode of communication is on it's way out just because people don't fel like learning it anymore.... But then again, I'm one of those lazy people too :)
Cathy
It was used in future IM devices! I always wondered why the heck Spock knew how to interpet and kirk knew how to do it.
My faith in StarTrek has been re-knewed! Now if they can explain why Spock said "There is the old Vulcan proverb: only Nixon could go to China." Now all I need to know if Nixon is a embassador on Vulcan and China is the name of a Woman.
I thought I would post a response in morse code, but I was foiled by the /. lameness filter. .-. .- - ...
Slashdot - Where the slash is most definitely to the left.
use:
morse-region
unmorse-region
Just thought you'd want to know.
There used to be a wider ham packet network, back before the ARPANet became the Internet; this piggybacks on the technology and uses it for short message, position reporting, and weather reporting. Check out APRSWorld.net for open-source software for the network side of this. (The radio side is already taken care of in the Linux kernel, and in various Windows packages. There is also a client program called XASTIR.
that beep pattern you hear from most phones with the ringers on when they get an SMS message is "... -- ..." which is of course, morse code for "SMS"
Oh the irony!
This should put an end to the eternal debate over which is more efficient, one button or more...
Morse Code Geeks had a hundred year head start on the PC geek...
We're not worthy...We're not worthy...We're not worthy
Convert text to Morse code here:
http://www.csgnetwork.com/morsecodedeconv.html
Provided they did not lie about the message, I managed to type in real time the message using T9 in about 1 second less than it took them to send it via morse code, and morse code was the winner. I would assume the SMSer had the destination number pre-entered and all..
And this was on my old phone, which has rather "stiff" buttons. (I normally use a Treo 650, but that would have been cheating with QWERTY.)
It's unclear from the video if it was network delay or something else that SMS to be slower. Either I'm an amazing SMSer (which I seriously doubt) or there was network delay or those were miserable SMSers on the show!
I took a Marine Radio Op. course back in the 80's and received a Canadian RGMC (Radio General Maritime Certificate). We had to be able to send and receive 25 wpm of CW. I never did work in the industry, but it is like riding a bike, I can still send at around 10 wpm without any practice for 20 years. Receiving is different for me and I can barely do it any more.
What would be great is to be able to input SMS on a single key as CW and have it processed and sent out as a regular text message. I would rather read the message and it can doesn't have to be read real-time like full 2 way CW. Every cell should have it as an input option and I think there may be a few open source decoding packages. Does anyone have any links?
Most moronic post on /. today. Get a life you fuckin idiot.
I saw that show, and I tried it on my phone at the same time. SMS was much faster, although I do make use of the dictionary. If "America's Fastest Text Messager" is too dumb to use the T9 dictionary, then we can all save a bunch of money on our insurance premiums ;)
"One man can make a difference."