John F. Hughes - Personal - Boats - Java Applets

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Here is a Java applet to help you learn the International Code of Signals. It's not the best possible applet by any means, and I have lots of ideas for tuning it up ... but no time to do so, so please don't send me suggestions.

This applet uses JDK 1.1, which provokes a "security exception" if you use Netscape, alas. That means you have to use HotJava or Internet Explorer for now.

Here's how it works: To start, press the "welcome" button and read the directions. You'll be shown signal flags one after another, and you try to type the characters the flags represent; when you're shown a "B" flag, you type "b".

If you type the right letter, the green "light" at the top glows briefly; if you get the wrong one, the red one glows.

The game keeps a running record of how well you've been doing, and as you get good, it shows the flags faster and faster. If you can't keep up, you'll score will start getting bad, and the game will slow down.

At any time, you can press "Game settings", and you can set which flags will be shown. Right now your only choice is to show "A", or "A and B", or "A and B and C" and so on, up to showing "A and B ... and Z". You can also set the number of flags shown per second if you want.

Have fun!

Here is another Java applet to help you learn the International Code of Signals, and to read some amusing quotations as well.

This applet uses JDK 1.1, which provokes a "security exception" if you use Netscape, alas. That means you have to use HotJava or Internet Explorer for now.

Here's how this one works: each time you press the "next phrase" button, a (possibly amusing) phrase is shown, with some of its letters replaced by signal flags. At first, all letters are shown. If you push the "harder" button, one (randomly chosen) letter will be replaced henceforth by its corresponding signal flag; each time you push the button, another flag will be added in the same way. "Easier" does the opposite, and "show alphabet" shows you the alphabet with the currently-active letters indicated by their flags, so you can figure out what's what.