History Repeating A cartoon strip I saw in a magazine

[iGuest 3]

I saw this in a magazine but I'm uncertain where credit for this should go, as I was just at a news stand looking at everything to fill time in.The cartoon strip showed many historical events of the transition from Morse code to SMS Messaging and it related back on it's similarities.It starts off with a person doing morse code by tapping the buzzer in this means of communication, then shows the phone's history and it's means of communication by voice, then off track it shows how the phone changes from corded to wireless and then to mobile phones where it shows communication by tapping buttons to send text messages.The backwards step is we are tapping buttons to communicate, which similarly reflects the morse code method. It did get me thinking about what we should expect in the future though and looking back in history you would be surprised at knowing what we can expect in the future. I also pondered the ridiculous side of it wondering if it'd be faster to write messages in morse code using your mobile than actually the numerous keypresses needed to get to certain characters :(If anyone knows where I saw this cartoon strip, then I'd really appreciate giving credit to them.Cheers,MC

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Whosoever came up with the adage - "History Repeats Itself" was oh-so-right !! Look around and you'd find so many of such examples..

[szupie 0]

I also pondered the ridiculous side of it wondering if it'd be faster to write messages in morse code using your mobile than actually the numerous keypresses needed to get to certain characters

I've heard that some people are so skilled at phone-typing that they can type over 60 wpm. I don't know how fast Morse code can be typed, but I guess that if you practice it for a long time, you should be able to type faster than phone-typers, since it's easier to press a big bar repeatedly than to locate those tiny keys and press them. But are there any codes for punctuation in Morse code? Maybe there are in newer versions...

[iGuest 3]

You know szupie, you jumped an idea in my head, because of the punctuation comment.Morse Code is real time beep beep beep pause beep beep beep, the pausing is the punctuation , SMS Messaging isn't real time. Guess where they could take it next, bringing instant messaging or maybe call it live messaging to mobile phones. Maybe they've done this already?Cheers,MC

[szupie 0]

That would be like the beginning of The Matrix, where you can see each letter coming up on Neo's screen while Trinity is typing. But I don't see how it's better than real-time SMS messages.

Actually, when you talked about Morse code on the phone, I actually thought it as just an input language for English, like the ChangJie input or PingYin input for Chinese. I assumed that the phone would automatically change it to English characters as you type them, much like a phone's keyboard would.

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

That would be like the beginning of The Matrix, where you can see each letter coming up on Neo's screen while Trinity is typing. But I don't see how it's better than real-time SMS messages.

 

Heyyy.. that's old stuff really If you've ever been into the phone-line based dial-up Bulletin Board Systems that were prevalent in the 80's and early 90's (prior to the internet boom) - then you'd have encountered this kind of chat. There were a whole bunch of such good BBS software available for DOS and Unix those days. I can't exactly recall their names - but I remember two of them. One was MaxBBS from IBM (an immensely configurable one from ground up) and another one called RIP BBS. Both ran on DOS and all you'd need is a COMM Port and a modem and people could simple start dialling up to you and downloading files and/or posting messages. You could do real-time chat too.

 

The forum systems you see today on the web are DIRECT Off-shoots of these BBSes. I've used them extensively at one point of time (around 1991-95)...

 

Anyways, crux of the matter is that these BBSes had a realtime chat system built in. You could see EACH CHARACTER as they were being typed. If the other chatter made some mistakes and started deleting his word(s), you could see the words vanishing from your screen letter-by-letter That was GREAT FUN I tell you... and looked ultra cool. This was possible coz in reality the BBS just acted as a centralized hub and infact you and the other chatter(s) were connected directly COM Port to COM Port and hence streaming the text as it was typed was not a problem at all. Unfortunately this isn't quite possible on the internet as of today unless you're somehow directly connected to another person. Trying to transmit each character realtime (and then waiting for each packet acknowledgement) would increase the traffic millionfold. And it'd shoot up exponentially with every single chatter joining in... as in group chats, this won't be a one-on-one transmission anymore.. but rather broadcasting of the same message to all...

 

But it was great fun while it lasted, though I did burn a huge hole in my dad's pocket dialling long distance and connecting to such BBSes for downloading stuff and chatting up with ppl

[ginginca 0]

I was recently driving in a rain storm on the HWY (the 401 headed to Toronto for to Torontonians).I needed to communicate by SMS which would be difficult in the heavy traffic, high speed and reduced visibility.So I had my 6-year old do it for me.Not only did she do well, but she had a blast. So where's THAT generation headed?