Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by msarrel 294 days ago
Me and the other nerds used to send each other notes written in Morse code in high school.

This site is timely. Just the other day I turned on the emergency setting on my flashlight and thought oh that's an interesting pattern. Why would it flash three long then three short then three long? About 30 seconds later I realized that I had forgotten an entire alphabet.
2 comments
cortesoft 294 days ago
SOS is the only Morse code I still remember. One of my early coding projects was a Morse code transcriber.
link
amarant 294 days ago
My old Nokia phone had a SMS ringtone that spelled out "SMS" in morse. It's quite similar to SOS, and now I don't know which is which
link
ale42 294 days ago
A proper SOS should be transmitted without breaks (and is therefore sometimes displayed as "SOS" with a bar on the top).

  ___
  SOS  (emergency call)  =  ...---...
  SMS                    =  ... -- ...
  SOS  (three letters)   =  ... --- ...
link
amarant 294 days ago
Yeah I think my Nokia skipped the pauses, making it sound more similar to the proper SOS signal. But it only had the 2 long notes instead of three, obviously.
link
notherhack 294 days ago
OSO? Maybe it was a Spanish flashlight warning of a bear nearby? ;)
link