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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."
Having already posted one dupe today, timothy pulls off the amazing feat of posting a dupe of a dupe!
It's a dupe followed by a dupe-dupe!
What do you call that?
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.
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.
Add to that the fact that it takes ages to learn morse and only a few minutes to learn standard texting or T9 predictive text, I think you'll find that the take up on morse on phones would be pretty much zero.
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).
The only part of his idea that I think is sensible is the idea that you can answer and redirect calls without having to look for the key to press (not that I find that hard after I've had my phone a few days, because you know where the main green and red buttons are without having to look). Having said that, most phones have any key answer if you enable it, and on a lot of bluetooth handsfree kits you can answer and make calls using a single button and voice tags (obviously requires phone support).
Also, the reason morse is as fast as it is is because you hardly have to move your finger at all. The article author is suggesting that you use your fingernail for a "dit" and the flat of your finger for a "dah". This would be ridiculously slow and very painful after the first few characters as it would be a very unnatural movement!
If you want to type seriously fast on your phone, then you need a way to plug in a standard sized keyboard (preferably Dvorak!).
This is a semi-http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/03/0 525225&tid=133&tid=215">dup. This submission has an article containing a reference to the material that Jay Leno stole, plus an unnecessary commentary on O'Reilly Developer Weblogs that provides no revolutionary thought and hardly any intellectual merit
/ 29/0212242&tid=232&tid=14">8 hours a part.
/. can fire http://www.monkey.org/~timothy/">this poor fellow and hire me for the seemingly cush job of /. editor? I promise to never dup! (or semi-dup in this case)
At least this time Timothy's dup and its original post were more than http://hardware.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/06
I'm not trying to be mean here, but is there anyway
Falun Dafa is good!
not to mention the morse coders have a nice simple switch... the thumb typers have crappy little buttons and a slow cellphone OS to contend with
After watching the Jay Leno episode I was about to start writing a program to do that on my 6600, luckily I did some research before starting and found this with the source included!
You write the sms in morse and it converts and sends it as a regular sms.
You can use the joystick on the phone (left for dot and right for dash) so you have your finger on one button all the time!
Also I found this page for learning morse code ...
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.
according to this :& nid=1541
p eed_recor.html
http://www.160characters.org/news.php?action=view
Just 90 seconds after Mr Hill began transmitting, Mr Gibson announced that he had the message received and written down correctly.
The message was
"Hey, girlfriend, you can text all your best pals to tell them where you are going and what you are wearing."
thats 108 characters
108 / 90 = 1.2 cps
yet the world record for SMS entry is 3.7 cps
http://www.smartmobs.com/archive/2004/06/28/sms_s
Ms Kimberly Yeo,a 23yo business student,clocked just 43.24 seconds for typing this 160-character, 26-word text."The razor-toothed piranhas of the genera Serrasalmus and Pygocentrus are the most ferocious freshwater fish in the world. In reality they seldom attack a human."
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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
morse speed records are measured in wpm, a crazy metric but I guess it stops people sending .......... really fast and claiming cps records
Ms Yeo's was 36.1 wpm
Hill/Gibson managed 14 wpm
the record for morse wpm is in the mid 70's, but for competition they transmit for 15 minutes from a newspaper
http://www.rogerwendell.com/morsecode.html
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
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
The Greatest Dupe Known To Man! (Score:-1, Redundant)
Hilarious. Good luck to the meta-moderator trying to judge this one.
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.
Just FYI...proper pronunciation of morse code is:
. = "dit"
- = "dah"
so....your message would be...
dit dit dah, dit dit dit, dit, dit dah dit dit, dit, dit dit dit, dit dit dit
legal. fun. profitable. pick two.
In fact, you can even buy a plan from T-Mobile that has no voice minutes built in -- only data.
Actually the dot is pronounced "di", except when it's the at the end of the sequence.
So,
di di dah, => U
di di dit, => S
dit, => E
di dah di dit, => L
dit, => E
di di dit, => S
di di dit. => S
If you disagree with me on social issues, then it's pretty clear that you are a narrow-minded bigot.