Faber’s Talking Machine * 1850

|November 13, 2009 | Stuffs

From Bell Telephone Labs’ 1963 book Speech Synthesis – An Experiment In Electronic Speech Production : ” Faber’s talking machine, developed around 1850, could hold a conversation in normal speech. A foot-operated lever pumped the bellows at the top right. Air streaming from the bellows activated a vibrating reed whose buzz was modified by the resonances of the tubes on the operator’s left side and by the lip-like opening directly above the tubes. The keyboard played by the young lady determined which resonant tubes were in use. The mask face-up on the front of the machine was included to complete the illusion. ” Here are some of the groovy people that worked at Bell Labs in the 60s.