Early speech board maker? - test-drb@ccmp.vtda.org

25 Jun 1998

<Cool Stuff about the history of computer speech SNIPPED>

...
    A year or two earlier, Texas Instruments got into
speech synthesis in a big
   way using a technique halfway between digitized speech and speech
 synthesis, a
   process that might now be called "smoothed sampling". It worked much better
   than true synthesis in that its intelligiblity was quite good. Because of
   that, TI was able to sell a variety of manufacturers on the idea of having
   talking washing machines, microwave ovens, vaccuum cleaners, etc. The most
   expensive of these talking machines was the Chrysler LeBaron automobile
 -- and
   people (the end-users, not the engineers) found all of this incredibly
   irritating. The single most requested option on the LeBaron, by far and
 away,
   was to have the speech generator deleted.

   Talking appliances were a technological fad that lasted only about three
   years, 1979-1982.  
/NOSTALGIA = ON

Wow, this brings back a funny (well to me, anyway) memory.  In 1983, 
I used to service two way mobile radios for a Motorola Service 
Center in Los Angeles.  Typically, the customer would bring in his 
car, explain the problem, and then wait in the lounge whil I worked 
on it.

One day, this guy comes in with this big, shiny new luxury car (well, 
maybe it was a Buick? Chrysler? anyway . .), with a broken two-way.
I'm sitting next to him in the front seat, and he's trying to explain 
the trouble.  The whole time, the car is saying <<The key is in the 
IGNITION>>, <<The key is in the IGNITION>>  . . . in a decidedly 
mechanical pseudo-woman's voice.

The guy gets pissed, and angrily jerks the key out of the ignition
(shutting up the robot), and continues to tell me how he can't talk 
to his dispatcher . . .

An hour goes by, and I replace a bad antenna and feed line, and clamp 
down the BIG +12v lead, and so on.  I start the engine, the radio 
works ok, so I kill it, and head for the lounge where the customer is 
waiting.

We step outside, I explain the work I did, and he signs the invoice.
As he turns towards the car, he asks me where are his keys.  Using 
the best mechanical voice I could muster I replied: <<The key is in 
the IGNITION>>, <<The key is in the IGNITION>> . . . 

/NOSTALGIA = OFF

Well, it was funny at the time.  
You really had to have been there . . . 

Jeff
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