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Cartoon Prison (Posted on 2005-05-21) Difficulty: 2 of 5
You awaken in unfamiliar surroundings as a plate of food clatters to the ground. Your sleepy eyes open to see someone exiting the room, and you hear the clank of a door locking. You realize that you’ve been taken prisoner. Later, you hear a tapping which you realize is an attempt by a fellow prisoner elsewhere in the prison to communicate with you. The code is a series of 1 to 5 taps, a short pause, then 1 to 5 taps, then a long pause. You start recording the message as a series of 2 digit numbers. Commas represent longer gaps.
What is the message, and for bonus points who is the other prisoner?

Mouse over for a hint: C and K are indistinguishable in this code.

44 23 24 43 , 14 34 33 44 , 31 34 34 13 , 31 24 13 15 , 35 24 43 32 34 ,
12 15 11 13 23 , 24 , 13 33 15 52 , 24 , 43 23 34 45 31 14 , 23 11 51 15 ,
44 11 13 15 33 , 44 23 11 44 , 31 15 21 44 , 44 45 42 33 ,
11 44 , 11 31 12 45 41 45 15 42 41 45 15

  Submitted by Larry    
Rating: 4.4000 (5 votes)
Solution: (Hide)
The message reads: “This don’t look like Pismo Beach. I knew I should have taken that left turn at Albuquerque.” And the bonus points go to anyone who said “Bugs Bunny”

This tap code has been used in the past by prisoners of war. The problem with using Morse code when tapping is that Morse code has a short sound and a long sound (dit and dah), but there is no way to make a long tap. Railroad Morse Code uses a tap followed by either a short or long space following the tap to represent dit and dah, but railroad Morse is difficult to learn and use.

The POW Tap Code uses the following table:
1 2 3 4 5
1 A B C,K D E
2 F G H I J
3 L M N O P
4 Q R S T U
5 V W X Y Z

Comments: ( You must be logged in to post comments.)
  Subject Author Date
Puzzle Thoughts K Sengupta2023-08-19 08:40:56
re: ALMOST THEREErik O.2005-05-23 15:22:58
SolutioinRyan Harrigan2005-05-23 04:20:15
re(3): ALMOST THEREsassy2005-05-22 11:42:02
No SubjectKris2005-05-22 08:37:25
re: why garbage?????????TomM2005-05-21 23:21:29
Some Thoughtsre(2): ALMOST THERELarry2005-05-21 15:51:27
Solutionre: ALMOST THEREsassy2005-05-21 15:05:53
re: ALMOST THERECharlie2005-05-21 14:14:33
re: why garbage?????????Charlie2005-05-21 14:14:01
why garbage?????????Ady TZIDON2005-05-21 13:40:11
Some ThoughtsALMOST THEREAdy TZIDON2005-05-21 13:37:18
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