· – - - · – - · · – · · (‘JPL’)
I guess Morse Code isn’t completely obsolete… The guys and gals at Jet Propulsion Laboratory clearly wanted to leave their mark on Mars… and now they have!
One can only wonder what other bon mots they’ve encoded on those 6 wheels!
[ ·--- ··- ·--· ·· - · ·-· / ··· ···· · · ·--· / ·-· ··- ·-·· · ··· ]? 
American painter Samuel Morse’s code was devised for the telegraph in the 1840′s. The ‘dits’ and ‘dahs’ were equivalent to digital 1 and 0 or ‘on and off’, although they of course had no clue about the digital revolution still a century in the future…
An interesting and practical aspect of Morse’s code was that it takes letter frequencies into consideration. The most common letters in English are ‘E’ and ‘T’ which became ‘·‘ or a single ‘dit’ and ‘-‘ or a single ‘dah’ respectively. So the more commonly used letters are shorter patterns.
“SOS”, the international signal of distress, is simply “··· – - – ···” in Morse Code.
Morse was widely used in military communications until well after the Korean War in the 1950′s.
I had to learn Morse Code as a Boy Scout and since I was into shortwave radio for a while I had to get to 5 words/minute (without errors – harder than it sounds) to qualify for an FCC ‘Novice’ radio operator’s license. Morse is no longer required for communications however, but does come in handy now and then in search and rescue and in Martian tire treads!
Comment on August 30, 2012 @ 2:12 am