 | |||||||||||||
|
Contents
| |||||||||||||
| |||||||||||||
|
| |||
Format Questions
How do I interpret this diagram?
In the background of the diagram is the essential phone key pad. Numbers that actually occur in the phone number have their corresponding keys highlighted in blue. All other numbers are shown in a faint grey. In the foreground are a number of orange dots connected by lines. The dot representing the first digit of the number has a thicker black outline than the others. It is connected to the next dot representing the next digit with a line. The line is drawn such that it appears to come out from the back of the first dot and then goes into the front of the second. If you only had the three digits "123", then the three dots would would look like this:
The idea here is that the first digit is on top and the last digit is on the bottom, all being connected by a line running away from the observer.
The lines are crossing and it looks messy/confusing.
Is it supposed to do that?
Maybe. If you get something that looks really broken, please let us know. However, some numbers will look confusing with lines going every which way. What that tells you is that this may be a number that is harder to remember using geometric mnemonics.
Why do you use this format?
We use this particular format because it shows the required information and not much else. Describing movement in a two-dimensional medium such such as paper or a computer screen has been a little known and fascinating (to some) topic of research. If you would like to learn more about notations for movement, check out some of the web sites listed in our link section on this topic.
The picture could be less confusing for certain numbers.
Probably, but we are not trying to write the worlds best path layout tool. (Besides, that has already been done several times over). Computer Geek Questions
What programming language is this program written
in?
The picture is generated in Java using the very fine Java2D API from Sun Microsystems. There is also some amout of web goop script written in Tcl in order to make this functionality available to you via your web browser.
Isn't that slow?
You would think so, but most of time goes into the Java discovering its classes, font libraries, etc,.. so once you turn the Java program into a persistent process, it is actually rather fast. Even on our modest server, we can draw a few dozen of these images per second. General Questions
Is there a DialABC version for the PC or Mac?
If so, I would like to get a copy!
The short answer is: No. Ask a QuestionIf you have any questions regarding any of our online phone number tool that are not answered here, please send us email. | |||
