[HN Gopher] Little games to play with Morse Code in the browser
___________________________________________________________________
Little games to play with Morse Code in the browser
Author : otras
Score : 39 points
Date : 2022-02-05 15:17 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (alexanderell.is)
(TXT) w3m dump (alexanderell.is)
| nickcw wrote:
| This is a fun game - more Morse code games are a good idea!
|
| The slow setting is painfully slow though - that isn't teaching
| the right sound of the morse code.
|
| So I'd suggest the minimum letter speed should be 20wpm but with
| spacing between the letters to make it easier to understand when
| you get up to words.
|
| Note dot time in ms is 1200/wpm if that helps!
|
| PS speaking as someone who can do morse at about 15 wpm now after
| having studied on LCWO for quite a few months!
| otras wrote:
| Great call on varying the spacing between letters. I added that
| as an additional option and it's a much better experience for
| both listening and inputting. Thanks!
| ummwhat wrote:
| I recently learned Morse code. Long story short, for a while my
| life took a strange turn where I had full reign over someone
| else's Airbnb, and was free to modify the place in my image. We
| found this big light fixture meant for the ceiling, but in a
| moment of divine inspiration put it out on the fire escape and
| ran the wire to the house server as our "semaphore". Originally I
| was going to add server code to translate messages from some API
| endpoint into Morse. But just to get things off the ground, I set
| it up as a normal light switch and started keying in messages by
| hand.
|
| I spent a few afternoons keying out random silly / vulgar
| messages. Stuff like "- .... . / ..-. -.-. -.-. / .-- - -. - /
| .-.. . - / -- . / -...", "- .... . / .-.. .. --. .... - ... / -.
| --- - / - .- .-.. -.- .. -. --. / -.-- --- ..- / .... .- ...- . /
| --. --- -. . / -- .- -.." and ".. -- / -- . ... ... .- -.. .. -.
| -.. / .- -... --- ..- - / -.-- --- ..- .-. / -.-. .- .-. ... / .
| -..- - . -. -.. . -.. / .-- .- .-. .-. .- -. - -.--". At first I
| had to look at a Morse reference sheet while keying these in, but
| after a few hours I was no longer looking at the sheet.
|
| Moral of the story, it only takes a few bored afternoons to learn
| Morse. You should do it.
| curiousfab wrote:
| The timing sounds off (incorrect dot-dash-pause ratio) and the
| characters are not well shaped keyed, not very pleasant. There
| are much better options, among others:
|
| https://morsecode.world/international/trainer/trainer.html
|
| https://lcwo.net/
|
| http://www.elkins.org/
|
| Here's a comprehensive list of Morse resources:
|
| https://morsecode.ninja/resources/index.html
| otras wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback about the timing and the other
| resources! I'm very much not an expert in Morse code (as I'm
| sure you can tell).
|
| I tried to follow the ratios here
| (https://morsecode.world/international/timing.html) as follows:
| var DOT_TIME = 300; // Dit: 1 unit var
| DASH_TIME = DOT_TIME * 3; // Dah: 3 units var
| SYMBOL_BREAK = DOT_TIME; // Intra-character space: 1 unit
| var LETTER_BREAK = DOT_TIME * 3; // Inter-character space: 3
| units var WORD_BREAK = DOT_TIME * 7; // Word space:
| 7 units
|
| But it's interesting to hear that the timing still sounds off
| and the characters are not well shaped. I wonder if there are
| some artifacts in the web audio API related to how it's playing
| that would cause the difference.
|
| Either way, thanks again!
| curiousfab wrote:
| Mh, timing sounds correct now - I listened to it on my mobile
| earlier and it appeared to have excessively long dots
| (Firefox Mobile). Cannot reproduce now. Sorry.
|
| You may want to run the output through a low-pass filter of
| the Web Audio API, or manually "ramp up" and "ramp down" the
| edges, so they don't sound so rough/hard.
| otras wrote:
| Glad to hear it - I may have snuck in a source code change
| since you last listened after one of the other commenters
| suggested the Farnsworth method! Thanks again for the
| suggestions.
| SaberTail wrote:
| The trick to getting good at Morse code is to learn how the
| letters (and eventually words) sound, rather than parsing
| individual dits and dahs. I wouldn't recommend using this on
| anything but the "fast" speed, and even then, it's almost too
| slow.
|
| I'll second the recommendation of https://lcwo.net . That's how I
| learned it, and I was able to get up to about 10 wpm after a
| couple months of practice.
| otras wrote:
| That's a great perspective. I'm so unaccustomed to parsing it
| that even the "Fast" setting felt lightning fast to me! I went
| ahead and added a new "Faster" speed. It may be running into
| the limits of how precise the Web Audio API can be, but
| hopefully it should be a little closer to a more proper speed.
| Thanks!
|
| Edit: after a little more research and experimentation, the
| Farnsworth method you mentioned is actually an even better
| experience for both listening and inputting - went ahead and
| added an option for it, defaulting to on. Great call!
| SaberTail wrote:
| Thanks! And it's great to have more and different games for
| practicing, so thanks for making this.
| mikece wrote:
| I believe the technique you're referring to is called the
| Farnsworth method where the letters are keyed at a faster speed
| than the overall transmission speed (eg: at 5 words per minute
| the letters are sent at 13; when learning at 13 the letters are
| sent at 20).
|
| Another thing about learning Morse code is to NEVER try to
| learn it visually if plan to send/receive aurally. Before I
| joined the Navy I had been proficient with Morse code at around
| 15WPM; I was able to read the flashing light codes being sent
| between ships but I had to "hear the light." The Signalmen had
| the opposite phenomenon: since they had learned Morse code
| visually in order to copy Morse code by ear they had to "see
| the sound." I'm sure between the fields of neuroscience and
| psychology there could be an interesting discussion as to how
| that cross-sensory translation takes place but it certainly
| does.
| rprospero wrote:
| I'll second this as someone who NEVER learned Morse code. We
| did lessons on it time and again during scouts, but, not only
| was there a near fetishistic emphasis on the dots and dashes,
| there was also an angry rejection of the idea that rhythm and
| pauses were a part of the process. Yes, multiple combinations
| of dots and dashes lead to the same pattern, but you were just
| supposed to determine the difference from context. The adults
| would give us a message like the one below and then despair
| that our generation was full of idiots.
|
| ..... .-... -..-- -.--- --.-. .-..- ..
|
| Sometimes they took it further and had us try to decode call
| signs and license plates, which gleefully removed that extra
| layer of context.
|
| -.-.- .-.-. .---- ----- --... .---- -..
| wrycoder wrote:
| Some people don't know what they're talking about!
|
| If you do want to learn code, try the Ham Morse iOS app.
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2022-02-05 23:01 UTC)