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Resurrecting flip phone typing as a Linux driver

(github.com)
112 points foxmoss | 9 comments | 23 Jun 25 19:02 UTC | HN request time: 1.577s | source | bottom
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humanfromearth9 ◴[23 Jun 25 19:46 UTC] No.44359324[source]▶
Blind-typing an SMS on a Nokia 3310 was so fast... or at least that was the feeling. I still regularly miss those keyboards, in particular when I hesitate between swiping a word or typing it, guessing how autocorrect will fail if I don't type... This never happened with my 3310, and there was no need for it at all.
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1. bee_rider ◴[23 Jun 25 20:11 UTC] No.44359577[source]▶
I bet it just felt fast (there are lots of repeated key-hits, right?). I remember around that time (maybe a little later) I had a slide-out keyboard Samsung of some sort. I got a reputation for writing long texts, haha.
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2. nkrisc ◴[23 Jun 25 20:38 UTC] No.44359818[source]▶
I liked T9 but one of those Samsung phones you’re talking about were the last phone I had before I bought my first smartphone. Of course the one I had still had a keypad on the front so I could still type using T9 without looking.
replies(1): >>44359844 #
3. kevincox ◴[23 Jun 25 20:40 UTC] No.44359844[source]▶
Yeah, I had this too. T9 on the keypad was great for typing one handed without really looking while the keyboard was excellent for longer messages when you had two hands available.
4. o11c ◴[23 Jun 25 20:43 UTC] No.44359871[source]▶
You're thinking of the inferior system that predated T-9. The whole point of T-9 was using a language-specific word frequency list so that words can be entered with just one digit per letter.

The main word pairs that this often fails for are "me/of" and "no/on" (edit: other super-common words are "go/in", "he/if", and "up/us"; "am/an" isn't a problem since you usually write "I'm"); prefixes that can end with "-er" or "-es" are also ambiguous. For those you need to press the arrows to select a possibility manually. If there's an ambiguity for longer words (usually, if the word you're looking for is not in the dictionary), you might have to use the arrows ahead of time and then keep typing before the space; it will try to complete suffixes that go after that prefix.

There are only around 2000 ambiguous digit sequences after excluding the -er/-es pair, and for most of those at most one is likely to be used in texting even if they're "common" in English.

The most ambiguous sets, with 6-8 "common" "words", are:

  2253 able bake bald bale cake calf
  22537 abler bake[rs] balds bales cakes calfs
  2273 acre bard bare base cape card care case
  22737 acres bards bare[rs] base[rs] cape[rs] cards cares cases
  24337 aides bides cheep cheer chefs cider
  269 any bow box boy cow cox coy
  4663 gone good goof home hone hood hoof
  46637 goner goods goofs homes hones hoods hoofs inner
  7243 page paid rage raid sage said
  727733 parred parsed passed rapped rasped sapped
  7277464 parring parsing passing rapping rasping sapping
  729 paw pay raw ray saw say
  7327 pear peas reap rear sear seas
  74337 ride[rs] rifer sheds sheep sheer sides
  7627 roar robs snap soap soar sobs
  7673 pope pore pose rope rose sore
  (no +7 since "popes" isn't common)
  78337 puffs queer ruder ruffs steep steer
  7867 pump puns rump rums runs stop sums suns
  787433 purged pushed rushed stride strife surged
Think about how often, while texting, you actually use the second-most-common of a given word set.
replies(1): >>44361255 #
5. Izkata ◴[23 Jun 25 20:43 UTC] No.44359874[source]▶
> there are lots of repeated key-hits, right?

Nope, one key per letter. T9 uses an internal dictionary to figure which word you meant, with some memory for preferred words when there's multiple matches and adding custom words.

replies(2): >>44359896 #>>44359935 #
6. 49531 ◴[23 Jun 25 20:45 UTC] No.44359896[source]▶
Exactly this, and occasionally you'd have multiple words come up for the same number combo, but in a consistent manner where the user could learn how many times you needed to hit the 'next' button to get the word you wanted.
replies(1): >>44369245 #
7. bee_rider ◴[23 Jun 25 20:49 UTC] No.44359935[source]▶
Oh wow, that’s wild.
8. bee_rider ◴[23 Jun 25 23:25 UTC] No.44361255[source]▶
Well this is going to make it very to report that I

Paid a sage boy to raid the pope’s home for cake goods.

But yeah, I guess that does make sense. Funny to miss such a significant thing—I was around then, but didn’t get a cellphone until the Samsung slider thing came out.

9. extraduder_ire ◴[24 Jun 25 18:32 UTC] No.44369245{3}[source]▶
The phone I used t9 on the most had the "next" button on the * key, an option to sort based on frequency, and replaced the word with "spell?" before cycling the list allowing you to manually edit the word and add it to your dictionary. I assume disabling that sorting function was preferred for people blind-texting.