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DECtalk Flexidisc Demo 1984
🕑 Added 2018-08-14 19:17:32 +0000 UTC The high fidelity recording of the quite low-fi DECtalk Evatone demo flexidisc from 1984 seen in Viewer Mail 6. The origins of the very familiar voice we all know are not evident in the demo, but we do get a glimpse into how DEC intended the system to be used. In retrospect synthesized speech automated voicemail seems creepy... hey - how did Stephen Hawking get my number and why is he crank calling me? Enjoy!
Comments
Yes! As soon as I heard it I thought of SAM. <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth" rel="nofollow noopener" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth</a>
Gilbert Pfaff
Had speech conversion on C64
Hi John, that Alpha Station was way ahead of its time, but some of the software was out of the dark ages. DECNET was a great example of a good idea, that lacked the software excellence.
John N Nelson
Robert, back in the '70s I worked for Burroughs (sp) but in the early 90's I worked with a DEC AlphaStation 255 monitoring a small part of the US power grid. The hardware was very good but the application was questionable. Ran on Dec Unix.
D. Stuart
Great stuff, there. I think that's a Pickering cartridge, if my flagging braincells are still firing in order. Have a great one! Stu
I used to service DEC computers, PDP, VAX etc, back in the day when computers earned respect. Great company and they had a sense of humor as well. The computers had what they called a "UNIBUS" (communication bus). If the UNIBUS failed it would show up in the error log as "FUBAR". Naturally this stood for "Failed UniBus Address Register". Riiight!
Keith Wright
Dang it, that lot got completely past Ad-Block +
This is frigging awesome! I graduated a year earlier, and some of my engineer classmates took on speech recognition and generation as a senior project. I used DEC computers at work for 5 years in the 80's, but never DECtalk!
John N Nelson
Stephen Hawking may have gotten your telephone number but he seems to have gotten my bank account number! Is that a Shure cartridge on your turntable?
