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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

I patented a scheme where cell phones could communicate with morse code. The idea was to put a rocker switch on the phone, one side for dit and the other for dah. Then, you could text people without needing to look at the display. You could be texting people at a meeting with your hand in your pocket. The phone would convert the morse to text to transmit to your penpal.

You could also opt to receive morse by having the phone vibrate in morse so you could stealthily receive texts, too!

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A related one-handed, eyes-off way to text fast is with the Twiddler chording keyboard, used by the wearable computing people, circa turn of the century:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twiddler

Of course that, too, requires special training to use. And harder to integrate into a smartphone design than 2 side buttons. (Maybe turn the back of an iPhone-like form factor into a chording keypad, with physical buttons or some other tactile affordance?)

Brad Rhodes at MIT would have a Twiddler in a pocket, a small Private Eye brand HUD on the corner of his hat brim, and a lunchbox-sized PC on a shoulder strap. He could be typing and looking up information while he was talking with someone or in a meeting, without them necessarily being able to tell.

(Though, if someone did notice use of the wearable computer, they might not say anything anyway, since -- as he eventually realized -- some people who hadn't gotten the demo thought that the box with the cables coming out of it and going into clothing might be a medical device.)

>>used by the wearable computing people, circa turn of the century

One of the things they discovered, is voice command really wasn't suited to a wearable as it was distracting in meetings, susceptible to background noise, made you look like you were talking to yourself, etc.

One of my favorite BoFH style stories was of someone that worked in an office where each PC was equipped with dragon naturally speaking. Apparently, you could walk thru the office yelling "format c:" <pause> "yes"....

On older nokia phones un 2000-2004 (when I had them), I could text as long as I know I am on the typing screen. I knew pressing 2 three times gives you c, one 3 gives you D, # changes case, 0 gives you space. Two zeros gives you dot.

I remember texting a lot while phone is under the table, or simply in pocket.

This (T9) was incidentally a great accessibility feature for folks with limited vision. My mom is mostly blind and was able to text my brother and I without her giant magnifying glass, often faster than we could reply. Today, for better or worse, she largely uses speech to text.

What GP describes is not T9. The thing known as T9 is a predictive algorithm based on a compressed dictionary that generates words from single presses on each key. If you triple-tap 2 with T9 you get "cab", not C.

I stand corrected on the name. My mom used what they described.

With normal pre t9, typing cab was a bit of a pain, 222222 if I remember the “end of character” code right.

It was more accurate than typifying on an iPhone with predictive text though.

Yes and every middle- and high-school kid with a "dumb" cell phone could text without looking, holding the phone under the desk or in a coat pocket and using T9 code.

You...patented this?

Were you trying to ensure no one ever did this?

I patented a few things so I could be officially called an "inventor" ! I know, I know, the sin of pride.

Here's a list:

    Patent 7831208 Wireless mobile phone having encoded data entry facilities
    Patent 7812993 Lossy method for compressing images and video
    Patent 7711748 Method and apparatus for simplified access to online services
    Patent 7028033 Method and apparatus for simplified access to online services
    Patent 6897977 Lossy method for compressing pictures and video
    Patent 6850782 Wireless device with vibrational communication capabilities
    Patent 6657647 Controlling the order in which content is displayed in a browser
    Patent 6418323 Wireless mobile phone with Morse code and related capabilities

I could have patented many of D's innovative features, but chose not to. Many have been incorporated into other languages without attribution, but although that's a bit irritating I did sign up for that.

What prototypes did you build?

The startup I was with did some mockups.

You could consider joining the Open Innovation Network. Had you patented the D features and licensed them freely as a member of the OIN, in return, you'd effectively get immunity from patent claims against you from any companies who use the D language!

[1]: https://openinventionnetwork.com/

You can do that even now! Gboard has had Morse as an option for years.

But almost always with these things it's not iambic/semi-automatic, which it should be to be somewhat useful.

I have been looking for morse code keyboards for smartphones and I have only found one that was good, and it was an early iPhone thing that hasn't worked on modern iPhones for years.

I call prior art - documentary link below:

https://youtu.be/oye9AmOdsZc

Watch from around 7:53 for around 1 minute.

Cool. But the boss could subscribe too. Is it encrypted? Are there standards for morse code encryption?

The morse app would just convert it to/from text, and then the text would be sent by whatever app you would be keyboarding input to.

There’s a vocal group who want to bring back the abacus. Sometimes you should just let go. .

I always found it disappointing nobody tried making a phone with 5 programmable buttons on each side. It would make an excellent chording keyboard setup if the phone was narrow enough to grasp.

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