Duration: 0:59
Views: 2073
By: fuzzymemories
Description: Here's a segment of PM Magazine Chicago called "Machines That Talk Back," reported by Bill Ratliff, that looks at Dallas-based Texas Instruments, the makers of "Speak & Spell" and other "talking computers."
The report begins with a snippet from the version of Nilsson's "Everybody's Talkin' " that appeared in the film "Midnight Cowboy," and spotlights TI employees whose job is to replicate the human voice for use in a computer chip called "Synthetic Speech," as well as the secrets behind what's inside the computers and what they represent. Screencaps from a TI home computer are also shown at one point in the piece, as is a little girl in front of one of those computers as it describes rockets headed to the moon.
This simple (?!) technology would be a precursor to later computer programs such as Dragon's "Naturally Speaking" - not to mention some Internet programs that for many years told us "You've Got Mail!"
Introduced by Jo Ann Williams, who ends this piece with the following words of wisdom:
"Computers do save us a lot of work . . . but they'll never replace people - they don't have any feelings!"
This aired on local Chicago TV on Wednesday, November 19th 1980.
WFLD Channel 32 - PM Magazine Chicago - "Lo-Cal Bakery" (1980)
PM Magazine - "Joan Esposito Audition" (1980)
PM Magazine Chicago - "The Christmas Tree Story House" (1980)
WFLD Channel 32 - PM Magazine Chicago - "Computer Sock Hop" (1982)
PM Magazine Chicago - "Behind The Scenes of M*A*S*H" (1981)
WFLD Channel 32 - PM Magazine (Break #2, 1984)
WFLD Channel 32 - PM Magazine (Opening, 1984)
WFLD Channel 32 - PM Magazine (Break #1, 1984)
PM Magazine Chicago - "Son Of Svengoolie" (1981)
No comments have been posted for this video yet.