Synthesized Speech RARE 1961 Record, Bell Laboratories

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Synthesized Speech RARE 1961 Record, Bell Laboratories

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Sold Date: 02/03/2008
Channel: Online Auction
Source: eBay
Category: Advertising

Synthesized Speech - 1961 Rare soundsheet from Bell Telephone Laboratories This wonderful relic from the dawn of speech synthesis is a 2-minute recording from Bell Laboratories, showcasing the work of John L. Kelly and Louis J. Gerstman for the Visual and Acoustics Research Department. I acquired this in 1966, in the 9th grade, when I began working on a speech synthesis system of my own. I finally made it to the International Science Fair in 1969 with my "acoustic analog of the vocal tract" that was based on X-rays of my own head (it even had a voice-change problem)... see photo over .)

Anyway, this little soundsheet is an absolute treasure, and includes the famous rendition of Daisy, Daisy that inspired HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey . Googling about, I found it discussed over on Lee Hartsfeld's interesting blog (opens in new window), though his recording is no longer available. So I slurped this one from a USB turntable into Tracktion on my Mac and conjured an MP3 : bellsynth.mp3 . This should play in your browser, but if not, you can download it and hand it to your music player software.

The sheet is torn, but fortunately the missing chunk does not impact the recorded area. A wrinkle causes a thump (clearly audible in the MP3 file), but this definitely belongs with a collector of early Bell Labs memorabilia or a historian of human-computer interaction. And it definitely has mashup potential.

Cheers from the Microship lab!