First binary encoding of the alphabet?

On 29 Nov 2010 at 6:54, Rod Smallwood wrote: One of my favorite questions: "Yes, but *which* Morse code?" The original Morse was rather more complex with variable-length dashes-- and spacing--such that L, T and 0 were all a single dash, but of varying duration. Similarly, I and O are represented by two dots, but with different spacing between them. Continental Morse used uniform spacing and dash length, but is very different from the International Morse used during the 20th century (e.g. 0 (zero) is .-- .) The original "Telegrapher's Morse" would be just about unreadable to a modern radio amateur skilled in reading International Morse. I suspect that one absolute requirement for the old telegraphers was a well-developed sense of rhythm (i.e. a good internal *clock*). --Chuck