The speed of the dots could be altered by sliding a weight along the lever. Dashes were made manually by pushing the lever to the left. Pushing a paddle mounted on one end of the lever to the right caused a spring-mounted contact further along the lever to vibrate against a stationary contact, making strings of dots. Martin, a New York inventor filed a patent on for a completely mechanical semi-automatic morse code transmitting key, which he named the 'Vibroplex.' The Vibroplex was based on a long horizontal lever that rotated around a vertical pivot.
