Back in the early 80's we had S.A.M. the Software Automatic Mouth. This was a primitive speech synthesizer written for the Atari 400/800 by Don't Ask Software.

I remember how amazing it was way back then. And then once the shock had worn off and I'd showed every person I could find in the neighborhood how amazing it was, it was quickly forgotten. (This process repeated itself years later with Dr. Sbaitso for the Soundblaster..)

It's kind of strange how even now, the same sort of thing comes hidden within OSX, and I'd wager the majority of Mac owners don't have a clue their Mac can speak. Speech and speech recognition was always something that seemed like an obvious requirement for future computing; a logical next step. After all, Captain Kirk didn't have to mess around with a keyboard and mouse; he just yelled something in mid-air and the computer responded back in a lovely voice. HAL9000 was interactive even back in the 60's. Even David Lightman had a little magic box (in 1982) that "translates signals from the computer" and rendered perfectly acceptable speech.

What happened to the dream? Does it end with Fitter Happier?

These are some choice shots of what appears to be a Fairlight product demo happening at the 1983 US Festival Technology Expo. Although not widely known, the Woz intended the US Festival to be an Epcot Center of sorts; if you got tired of waiting for Van Halen to take the stage you could walk a half mile to an air conditioned tent and check out the latest greatest computer and music tech.

Over 100 exhibitors will be there. On the musical side will be, from Vermont, New England Digital with one of the world’s most advanced computer music systems, the Synclavier II. Also, AlphaSyntauri will have their keyboard-based computer music systems for the Apple II on hand. Seymour Duncan will showcase their guitar pickups. Simmons Drums will show their computerized drums. Inventor-musician Emmett Chapman will demonstrate “The Stick.”

Hope they didn't get any dust in the floppies.

When and if I ever get a dedicated horde of comment posting viewers, I'd love to hear what they had to say about this pic. It struck me as a little odd; for one thing its a commercial stock photo (a sample actually). I was trying to imagine what on Earth it might be used for?

Hair salon?
JC Pennys mens shirt catalog?
Some company that makes super unstable looking keyboard stands?
Roland?

Even more bizarre is the weapon of choice: the Roland D-50. The picture looks like it was taken years after the D-50 was relevant, adding to the confusion.

I dunno, I just thought it was sort of funny.