Dot & Dash

Dot & Dash is a Morse code machine for the Mac that you can press. Hold Space or press the knob: a tap is a dit, a hold is a dah, and the tape prints as you key. You do not need to know any Morse to start. The welcome teaches E, one dit, and T, one dah, then has you send SOS.

Learn Morse by keying it. Twenty short chapters take you from E and T to the whole alphabet, the figures, everyday punctuation and the common prosigns, two or three characters a chapter. A lesson takes two or three minutes: meet a letter by its rhythm, key it, then key real words with it. Get one right and the next comes up by itself. A five-minute daily review brings back the characters that need it most, and a quiet map of the alphabet shows what you know and how fast you key it. Copying by ear waits in Practice as an advanced drill, for when you want it.

Write messages in Morse. Type a message and the machine sends it: the lever moves, the tone plays and the tape prints. Or key it yourself and watch it decode as you go. Set the speed from 5 to 40 WPM and add Farnsworth spacing while you learn. The Library saves what you send, so you can replay it on the machine and share it later.

Turn Morse into text, and back. Type or paste dots and dashes and the message appears as you go. Or write the message and get its Morse, ready to copy or to play on the machine.

Key Morse in any app. Switch on Type Anywhere in the menu bar, hold Right Option as your key, and what you key is typed into the app in front. A small pill under the menu bar prints the tape as you go. It never records what you type, and it pauses in password fields.

Share the tape. Send a message as an image of its printed tape, as audio, or as a square or vertical video of the machine printing it.

Straight key or paddles: hold Space, or use two keys as paddles in iambic mode A or B. A USB key or keyer that types a key works too.

Seven finishes. Works offline, with no account. Free for 24 hours with nothing held back, then $29 once for up to 3 Macs, with updates included. macOS 14 or later, Apple silicon and Intel.