RE: " Back to the Future - Morse Code and Cellular Phones"

[Cortland Richmond-2]

from [Margaret Leber] [Permanent Link][Original]

> Published on The O'Reilly Network (http://www.oreillynet.com/)
> http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/wlg/7016
>
>Back to the Future - Morse Code and Cellular Phones
>by Brian McConnell
>Jun. 28, 2005
>
>"Tapping"
>
>Morse Code, or a derivative of it, could be one way to solve this problem.

With Morse Code, one could
>tap text messages out without looking at the telephone, and without having
to fumble with ever smaller keypads.
>I'll admit that the idea of resurrecting Morse Code seems improbable, but
then it's worth remembering ...

Tapping has a long and  interesting history among prisoners.  It was used
in the "Hanoi Hilton" too:

quote
We asked him what they were teaching in the prison compound phase of
survival school, especially about communicating. Imagine our amazement and
consternation when he reported that the instructors had mentioned that we
had a “secret code” which his fellow prisoners would teach him when he
arrived there. Secret? It had been public knowledge for centuries.
unquote
See http://www.geocities.com/talesofseasia/talktome.html

The "tap code" (or prisoners code) has been around for a long, long time.
In English, by leaving out one letter of the alphabet (the VN prisoners
left out K) you could make a 5 by 5 letter matrix of the aplphabet, and
send messages with sequences of taps indicating which row and column the
letter occupied.  The article calls it superior to IMC because IMC requires
two different kinds of taps.  Some of the prsoners were able to signal
using teh rythmn of their sweeping, coudhing, snoring.... and some became
so expert that guards thought the prisoner was just tapping to harass his
guards. But read the article.

How does it look? Well, theletters in ETAONISHRDLU are the most commonly
used letters in English. In tap, that's:

E . .....  (pause) T .... ....  (pause) A . . (pause) O ... .... (pause) N
... ... (pause) I .. .... (pause)  
S .... ...  (pause) H .. ... (pause) R .... .. (pause)  D . .... (pause)  L
... . (pause) U .... .....

We now return you to your regualrly scheduled priogram.


Cortland
KA5S


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