Gizmodo: morse

What Hath God Wrought, Indeed [Image Cache]

Rosa Golijan — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 01:20:00 EST

Dit-dat-dat. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Dit-dat. Dat. May 24th, 1844. Samuel Finley Breese Morse is sitting in the Supreme Court chamber in the United States Capitol in Washington, DC. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Dit-Dat. Dat. Dit-dit-dit-dit. He has a message. And here it is in full-length:

Click on the image to get a closer look of the entire outgoing message. Warning: It's long.

Dat-dat-dit. Dat-dat-dat. Dat-dit-dit. Numbers XXIII, 23—a bible passage selected by Miss Annie G. Ellsworth crossed the wire from that Supreme Court chamber to the Mount Clare railroad depot in Baltimore, Maryland that day. Dit-dat-dat. Dit-dat-dit. Dat-dat-dat. Dit-dit-dat. Dat-dat-dit. Dit-dit-dit-dit. Oh, how it changed things. Dat. [American Memory via Letters of Note]

Pittsburgh Skyscraper's Famous Morse Code Signal Actually Spells "Pitetsbkrrh" [Oops]

Dan Nosowitz — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 07:30:00 EDT

Pittsburgh, PA's 33-story Grant Building famously spells out the name of the city in Morse Code so brightly it can be seen for over 100 miles. Except it doesn't actually spell Pittsburgh, but "Pitetsbkrrh." Eep.

A former HAM radio enthusiast and Pittsburgh local, Tom Stapleton, decoded the message and posted the gaffe on YouTube, and it clearly shows the tower's misspelling. He said he noticed the problem when he casually looked up and saw the signal broadcasting the letter K, which he remembered well as it's the first letter of his sister's name. Too bad "Pittsburgh" doesn't contain the letter K. Representatives of the tower's owners could not say how long the tower had been advertising Pitetsbkrrh. [Pittsburgh Post-Gazette]

Morse-It iPhone App Makes Samuel Morse Proud On His Birthday [Techversaries]

John Mahoney — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 13:40:00 EDT

Even though Samuel Morse is floating around on some ethereal atmospheric zaps right now, he is not too blissed out to smile at Morse-It, which commemorates his 218th birthday today with amazing real-time Morse translation.

Yes, Morse-It can do just about everything possible with Morse code—type in some text, and it will be translated into Morse in beep form as well as full-screen flashes, should you find yourself trapped at sea signaling a nearby frigate to send more caviar.

Also, amazingly, it can listen to Morse beeps (fast ones, too—the demo here is 40 words per minute) and translate them into text in real time. Very cool stuff—Happy b-day Sammy M. It's a buck. [Morse-It, iTunes]

Thanko Morse Code Secure USB Drive [Peripherals]

Gizloco — Mon, 17 Jul 2006 10:36:54 EDT

Security-concious USB drives are beginning to pop up more often and Thanko has a new spin on an old idea idea with its Morse Code drive. Rather than having Windows-only password software protect the contents of the drive, Thanko has placed a number pad on the drive itself, letting users set up set up the drive with their own unique password without having to connect to a computer. Just like other security-centric USB drives, unless the correct password is entered when plugged into a computer, the data will remain locked up forever.

The USB 2.0 Morse Code drive comes in 512MB and 1GB versions but only nominally work with both Windows and Mac OS X. The drive retails for $59 and $85 in Japan, respectively. I'm sure Samuel Morse is just thrilled that companies are throwing his name around with very little merit. – Nicholas Deleon

Product Page (in Japanese) [Thanko via Fareastgizmos.com]