Slashdot Mirror
Morse Code on Cell Phones?
An anonymous reader writes "In a recent showdown, veteran Morse coders were able to send SMS messages faster via Morse than the fastest thumb-typists. What about embedding support for Morse code directly into handsets? This article on O'Reilly Network floats the idea of using Morse code to compose text messages, as well as tapping commands (i.e. answer call, forward to voice mail, etc) in hands-free mode by tapping on the handset case."
So really you're just agreeing with the results of the test - which is that the best designed Morse code equipment is superior to text messaging on a numeric keypad. It doesn't require someone with 80 years of practice, either - just enough. I used to have an interest in ham radio when I was a kid, and I have seen the advanced key switches myself. Amazing stuff.
So we have Morse code, which works now and could be fitted to a phone. You have two thumbs and, as you pointed out, two big buttons; fit one to be the dot, one to be the dash. There you go. Ergonomic, really hard to make a mistake (assuming you know which hand is which), and already tried-and-true. No need to reinvent the wheel.
I don't think this is a case to cry foul, but to appreciate a superior message-sending format. Morse code can be learned relatively quickly, actually - within a week, if you really want to. When you get right down to it, it's just a bunch of ones and zeroes. You would think Slashdot people would appreciate that. )
As far as other technologies go, such as type-ahead find, etc, a japanese person would trump someone using the alphabet because they use a phonetic system that combines a consonant and vowel in every symbol, giving them a two-for-one deal. Combined with the fact that most nouns involve only two kanji and a far simpler grammatical structure and now you know why everyone in Japan emails via their cell, even with the limited keypad. Trust me, Japanese is a lot harder to learn than Morse.
"Give a man fire, and he'll be warm for a day; set a man on fire, and he'll be warm for the rest of his life
I think you're wrong. Kids are eager and able to learn new stuff, especially if it has some benefit for them. For instance, a colleague of mine has a 6 year old daughter who pretty much taught herself to read because she wanted to play online games and needed to understand what was going on.
Electronic morse keyers are very simple. All you need is one relatively simple integrated circuit (see The History of Curtis Keyers) and a switch or two. For a cell phone, the IC could be modified to generate ASCII characters for the SMS message while sending dots and dashes to the phone's speaker. If the phone could be attached to the user's arm or leg, it would provide a base for the keyer. The user could then use his free hand to operate the keyer. A pair of pressure sensitive panels on the left and right sides of the phone, near the bottom, would be ideal.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
One of the main reasons for using text messaging is to communicate with someone without putting a phone up to your ear. Are they suggesting that the morse code be printed on the screen of the phone?
Huh?
"worlds fastest morse coder"? nope. Not hardly. Just an experienced operator sending at less than 30 words a minute. Fast for morse code is 60 WPM.
"very expensive morse equipment"? uhhh, no. Not really. They used a cheap "Bencher" paddle, $100, not any "$200 morsing bug"...
Morse is the first and oldest digital transmission mode that I am aware of. The cell phone text message is also ultimately a digital transmission mode.
Personally, I hate text messaging because of the clunky input method. The idea that perhaps there is a better way to enter text into a phone is intrigueing. Also the idea that the phone could output the text message as morse code is interesting.
How many people are aware that when their Nokia sends "dah dah dah dit dit dah dah dah" it is in fact sending "SMS" in morse to indicate Short Message System? I hear it all the time, and nobody knows why it beeps like that!
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't
Whilst developing the Sony Ericsson P800, we put in an easter egg which would read your SMS's in morse code through the vibrator.
The reason was that one of the messaging developers wanted to receive football scores whilst in boring project meetings, and he'd set up a Perl script on a server somewhere to SMS him the results.
It worked - at least, he claimed it did - my morse wasn't really up to understanding the various vibrations. Unfortunately the developer in question wasn't brave enough to leave it in the final product.
Sending morse code isn't so important to amateur radio any more but here were some long-standing requirements:
5 words/minute -- novice/technician license.
13 words/minute -- general/advanced license
15 words/minute would get you highest privileges in some countries if I remember correctly
20 words/minute for a U.S. extra license
(a "word" averaging 5 characters)
There are "Q" abbreviations like "QTH" for "location" and slang like "C" for "yes". But I expect most amateurs in the day were banging out under 20 wpm with a "straight key". It's true that a "keyer" can be a one IC device. Touch pads have been used for them. So I suppose a keyer could be integrated into a phone quite easily. Ergonomics could be a factor. I don't know how well you could key on the metro.
Well, it does, I can tell it from experience (even in Hungarian, which, being an agglutinag language, is ill fitted for limited size T9 dictionaries).
The text used in the test could be entered on my phone without having to switch between the possible hits, so it definitely required less keypresses. The other thing is, what slows down SMS typing is the situation when the next letter is on the same button as the previous was - you have to wait for the phone to time out so you won't get "c" instead of "ba" - this delay is gone with T9.
Real life is overrated.
The supposed "showdown" on Jay Leno was a highly unscientific and inaccurate test which pitted the world's fasted morse coder using very expensive morse equipment against a teenager using a cheap cell phone with a membrane keypad.Um, that was only about 30wpm. Nowhere near a record for IMC sending speed. That is the typical traffic speed I hear on the radio every day.
If the pro-morser had been forced to enter morse on a phone keypad instead of his $200 morsing 'bug' then I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have won. It takes several keypresses to send a single character in morse and just because it's morse, it doesn't mean that you can press the keys any quicker. He could only key quicker because of the equipment he was using.
It was not a bug. It was a paddle with an electronic keyer.
That's kind of the point. Create touch sensitive pads on either side of a cellphone and you can use it as a paddle.
I think anyone's efforts would be better spent designing better keypads or improving predictive text rather than wasting time trying to put morse code (designed for carrier wave) onto a phone (designed for voice and data).
Morse was designed for the telegraph. Continues Wave transmitters came much later. Spark Gap transmitters were not CW.
--fatboy
My Dad (as a result of a stroke) was totally disabled, but could move a few fingers. In order to communicate, the PT group at the hospital got together with a local university and created a thumb-driven Morse code input device hooked-up to the latest marvel in computer technology at the time... an Apple II. The designers added some extra codes for the control keys and other symbols not in Morse code.
After about 3 weeks of training, Dad could "type" rapidly; and this was a person who didn't have full hand/finger dexterity. In a few months, he was going faster than the computer could process the keystrokes. Before getting the Morse code adapter, he had tried several other specialized communication devices, but none let him be as expressive, worked as well, or was as flexible.
We never did get a WpM measurement, but 40 WpM sounds about right.
It takes several keypresses to send a single character in morse
True, but so it also does using a telephone keyboard, where, depending on the protocol used, it takes one to three keypresses (and sometimes a short wait) to send a single character. It would be a simple matter to set up the keyboard with two buttons, one for dit and one for dah, just like a paddle would be configured. (Some ham rigs, including the cute little Elecraft KX1 allow you to do this with the front panel buttons if you don't happen to have a key handy.) Add an iambic keyer (which alternates between dit and dah when both levers are pressed simultaneously -- a highly efficient way of sending at high speed. More on this here [27k PDF] ) and you can send multi-element characters with one or two keypresses. Example: the letter Y is dah-di-dah-dah. You hold the dah, then tap the dit once, and keep holding dah until the last dah is sent. The keyer forms the character for you. Result: you only need two presses instead of four. In the case of our telephone handset, you have to press the 9 button three times to send a Y (W..X..Y). Result: With Morse, 33% fewer keystrokes for that character. Want another example? E, the most common letter. Morse: dit. Phone: 33. 50% fewer with Morse!
Ergonomically, you could even set it up so that the buttons you find on the outside edges of the handset (like on some Motorola phones) are your keying buttons so there would be no need to locate the right keys on the keypad.
it takes ages to learn morse
Not really. One can become proficient at about 5 words per minute in just a few weeks or even shorter if you work at it. The average person needs about 30 hours of study - about a half hour twice a day for a month. I've taught Morse to the level of proficiency needed to obtain an Amateur license in about six weeks.
morse code (designed for carrier wave)
Not really - it was originally designed for use on a DC wire circuit, where the key opening and closing would click a sounder at the other end. It was designed, and works, anywhere you can signal with an on-off state, such as signal lights on Navy ships or even conceivably smoke signals. It is said that Thomas Edison's wife communicated with him after he became deaf by tapping out Morse on his knee. Actually, its first use in radio was to key a spark generator, which produced not a carrier wave but a broad spectrum of noise. (Modern Morse radio transmission only occupies a few tens of Hertz bandwidth, making it one of the most spectrum-efficient forms of communication in existence.)
Actually, this is an idea I've had for some time, after fumbling around trying to compose a SMS message while walking through the mall, and got to thinking that if only you could use Morse to enter the message, it would be a lot easier (for me, anyway).