I remember this being thrown around at some point, but have never seen these pics. Very cool. I wonder where my two-way wrist radio is?

Junior G Man badge?

This kind of thing comes from the Victorian era its called a Cardian Grille.

I think this is fascinating and should be investigated.

me too

Two examples of this type of code are seen below. I think it very likely, or at least possible, Zodiac was both a student of cryptography and the history of codes, as well as true crime.

The first is a note reported to be found on a body, perhaps a suicide, connected to the Black Dahlia case. A researcher highlighted words in red that spell out Ed Burns. This may be real, or a hoax, or pure coincidence, but either way it is an example of the type of thing the Zodiac may have seen and been inspired by.

Beneath that is a Cardan Grille device, which can be used to create and decipher codes. It was used by Elizabethian era codemakers and is discussed in books on the history of codes. The Dick Tracy Decoder is basically a Cardian Grille.

If I were to attempt to try something like this to find a hidden message I think I would start with using the shape of the crosshair symbol for the template. The problem would be to determine a size and whether or not to round the shape or square it off. Even if you managed to hit on the right size and shape the message could still be coded. But my totally untrained cipher gut tells me that if the 340 can be solved it’s might be something as seemingly simplistic as this.

i agree with seagul
finding the template,… and maybe using the old code to solve?

maybe this has already been asked, but when was the Dick Tracy decoder made?

Here is a site with more Dick Tracy code making…. Does anyone have Dick Tracy as there POI?

http://sliderulemuseum.com/Manuals/M102 … r_Inst.pdf

T, yes, we’ve been round this one, had a little race to see who could decode the Tracy stuff first (I remember who won, but I’m not saying) – and we then had quite a long thread about the 340 as a Cardan (or trellis) grill cipher. DIdn’t go anywhere, (no really?!) but it was a lot of fun.

smithy-

Was I the first to solve these? I can’t remember, I only have a vague recollection of seeing this…. I have them solved now, anyways, LOL.

-glurk

(Yes, I was bored and had nothing better to do.)

I like the idea a lot. Can anyone else imagine Z taking great pleasure in using a children’s Dick Tracy decoder to create a secret message that the blue pigs couldn’t figure out? I certainly can. It could even add a level of irony considering himself a "cereal killer" like ‘ol BTK although the term serial killer wasn’t even coined until the 70s sometime, I believe.

AK’s example made me think of this recent secret coded message for some reason:

:large

It’s a long shot, Tahoe, but have you tried placing those decoder cards over portions of the 340 cipher to see if they would fit and yield any kind of message? Perhaps all of those extraneous non-letter symbols are just filler? The cipher is tidy enough that it would at least be possible to try. If you solve the damn thing this way and make a fortune in speaking engagements, just remember who helped you out, OK?

Here are two more of these "Dick Tracy Decoder" messages. I think they are both the same.
Good luck on reading them, though, the images are way too small:

-glurk

(I don’t think any of this has anything to do with Zodiac’s ciphers. But sometimes corny, crispy
diversions can be a bit of fun.)

The format of the cipher looks similar..nevertheless, the 408 was solved in a different way and is there a lack of letters ‘N’ and ‘A’ in the 340, too. Anyway, interesting find.

QT