Using your Mac keyboard as a Morse key
Yes, the keyboard you already have can be a Morse key. A program that reads Morse times how long you hold a key down: a short press is a dit, a longer one is a dah, and the silence before the next press is the gap. Space makes a good straight key, the Left and Right Option keys make a good pair of paddles, and Caps Lock is a key that cannot work at all.
You give up the feel of a real key, the spring and the click of the contacts, but nothing about the timing changes. That makes a keyboard a fine place to learn the rhythm, and a fine place to keep practicing on days when the key is in a drawer.
How a key press becomes Morse
A keyboard reports two moments for every key: when it goes down and when it comes up. That is all a straight key does too. A program that reads Morse measures the time between those two moments, which is the length of the element, and the time from one release to the next press, which is the gap.
How long each should be depends on the speed. A dit lasts 1200 divided by the WPM, in milliseconds; a dah lasts three dits, and so does the gap between letters:
| Speed | Dit | Dah | Gap between letters |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 WPM | 240 ms | 720 ms | 720 ms |
| 12 WPM | 100 ms | 300 ms | 300 ms |
| 18 WPM | about 67 ms | 200 ms | 200 ms |
| 20 WPM | 60 ms | 180 ms | 180 ms |
The keyboard decides nothing. With a straight key, whether a press counts as a dit or a dah is entirely up to your hand. The letter A, .-, is a quick tap, a short release, then a press held about three times as long: di-dah. N, -., is the same two elements the other way round, dah-dit.
Space as a straight key
Space is the natural straight key. It is the biggest key on the board, it sits in the middle under either thumb, and you can find it without looking. Press it with the side of your thumb or with two fingers together, whichever feels steadier.
A few habits make keyboard keying much cleaner:
- Rest your wrist. Let the heel of your hand or your forearm sit on the desk and key from the fingers. Hammering from the elbow tires you quickly and makes the dahs ragged, on a keyboard just as on a real key.
- Press all the way and let go all the way. A keyboard key either registers or it does not. A half-hearted tap that never reaches the bottom drops an element, and the letter changes.
- Listen to the tone, not the key. Keyboard switches make their own noise on the way down and on the way up. The sidetone is what tells you the length; let the click fade into the background.
- Lean on the dahs. Typing trains your fingers to tap and release, and that habit clips dahs. For the first week, hold each one slightly longer than feels right.
There is one catch. In any other window, Space types a space, so a keying program uses it only while its own window is in front. Keying into other apps needs a key that types nothing by itself, such as Option, Command or Control.
The Option keys as paddles
Paddles have two contacts, one for dits and one for dahs. Hold the dit side and a keyer sends a run of evenly timed dits; hold the dah side and it sends dahs; squeeze both and it alternates, di-dah-di-dah, which is iambic keying. The keyer times every element and every gap inside a character. You still time the gaps between letters and words.
On a Mac keyboard, Left Option and Right Option sit just beyond the Command keys on either side of the space bar, so a finger of each hand rests on one. They make good paddles for two reasons:
- They type nothing by themselves. Holding Option alone never puts characters into a document, so a held paddle cannot fill your screen with letters.
- They are told apart and read together. The Mac knows the left key from the right one, and it reads both held at once without trouble, which is exactly what a squeeze needs.
The usual layout puts dits on Left Option and dahs on Right Option. If you key paddles left-handed, or simply prefer it, swap them; paddles for left-handers explains why either side is fine. Whether the keyer adds an element after a squeeze depends on its mode, which iambic keying explained: mode A vs mode B covers in detail.
On some keyboard layouts, Right Option is busy typing accented letters and symbols. If yours is one of them, Right Command or Right Control will do the job instead. A MacBook’s built-in keyboard has no Right Control key, so on a MacBook that means Right Command.
Why Caps Lock cannot be a Morse key
Caps Lock is not a key you hold. It is a switch: press it once and it turns on, press it again and it turns off. To a program, its “down” lasts until the next press, so there is no release to time and no way to tell a dit from a dah. That is why keying programs leave it out.
A few other keys are possible but poor choices:
- The Globe or Fn key. Pressing it can change the input source or show Emoji & Symbols, depending on what System Settings, Keyboard says that key should do.
- Return, Tab, Escape and the arrows. They already do something in most windows, and a keyed one is easy to fire by accident when you reach for the mouse.
- Letter keys in a text field. Held in a text field, a letter may bring up a menu of accented letters instead of repeating.
Holding keys, and why key repeat does not matter
When you hold a key in a text field, macOS waits a moment and then repeats it. System Settings, Keyboard sets both halves of that with Delay until repeat and Key repeat rate.
None of that matters for Morse. A program made for keying watches the moment a key goes down and the moment it comes up. The repeats macOS sends in between are the same key, still held, and a program built for keying ignores them. Leave your key repeat wherever typing feels right.
What does matter is that you are holding, not typing. Typing is a string of quick taps of roughly equal length. Keying is a rhythm of short and long holds with measured silences. Two warm-up drills help the switch:
- Key E, I, S and H,
.,..,...and...., until every dit is the same crisp length. - Key T, M and O,
-,--and---, until every dah sounds three times as long as those dits.
Then alternate A and N, .- and -., and listen for the difference in shape.
Doing it in Dot & Dash
If you practice on a Mac, Dot & Dash starts with this layout: Space, or the knob on its machine, is the straight key, and Left Option for dits with Right Option for dahs are the paddles, in iambic mode A or B. Any key except Caps Lock can be chosen instead: click, then press the key. Its Type Anywhere feature keys into other apps on a held modifier, Right Option by default; see how to type Morse code into any app on a Mac.
Questions
Can I use any key on a Mac keyboard as a Morse key?
Almost any key works in a program built for keying, because it only needs to know when the key goes down and when it comes up. Caps Lock is the clear exception: it latches, so there is no release to time.
Should I turn off key repeat to key Morse?
No. A keying program reads the press and the release and ignores the repeats macOS sends while a key is held, so your typing settings can stay as they are.
Is a keyboard good enough to learn Morse on?
Yes. The rhythm and the timing are the same as on a real key. What you miss is the feel of the spring and the contacts, which takes a few sessions of adjusting when you move to a key.
Should I start with Space as a straight key or with the Option keys as paddles?
Either is fine. A straight key teaches you to make every dit and dah yourself, while paddles let the keyer time the elements so you can concentrate on the letters; straight key vs paddles weighs the two.