retro futurism, history, technology, voice-activated typewriter

A Machine That Types What Is Spoken To It, 1913

From time immemorial (or at least since the commercial production of the typewriter in 1873), office procedure went like this: the boss dictated, the steno took it down, and a typist translated the squiggles into type. In 1913, Mr. John B. Flowers, "a young electrical engineer of Brooklyn" did his best to eliminate the middlemen (or, most likely, middlewomen) with an early example of voice-activated technology. Click through for a closer look at Flowers's invention—and its limitations.

Flowers's device tried to recreate the human ear and hand. As explained by Scientific American:

In his apparatus a telephone diaphragm takes the place of the human ear drum; instead of the fibers, he employs a set of steel reeds, respectively tuned to the different overtone frequencies of the alphabet; for nerves he uses electric currents, and for the human hand [on the typewriter keyboard] a bank of solenoids.

There were "serious limitations which must be considered" with Flowers's voice-operated typewriter, chief among them its inability to distinguish between homophones like "to," "too," and "two," and that words like "laugh" would have to be pronounced phonetically in order for the machine to spell them correctly. Luckily, Flowers did "not present his invention as a complete solution of the problem of the voice-operated typewriter, but merely as a step toward that end . . ."

1:40 PM on Tue Apr 8 2008
By Lynn Peril
1,396 views
12 comments

Comments

Garrison Dean, King... at 01:53 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*
Connectedness Index: 140

What a frickin moron, a typewriter? Why didn't he try and get this to work with a computer?! Dumbass. Oh look at me, I've attached earbuds to a phonograph.. GOD!!!
Ghede at 01:55 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

I say the solution for homophones could have been the same as laugh. La-ug-h, t-wo to-o. Still faster than typing yourself. We could have had dictophones. Ah well, what could have been.

I wonder if anyone could find blueprints somewhere. Would make a good instructables project.
goldfarb at 01:57 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

amazing how far we've come...
check out Vocaliod : [www.vocaloid.com]
se7a7n7 at 02:05 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

That looks like an Underwood typewriter. I sold one of those on eBay last month for about $70.

That guy was pretty amazing for doing that almost 100 years ago. Too bad he didn't realize that what he had, with more work could have been developed into the electric typewriter and the computer. Or maybe he did?
MonkeyT at 02:08 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

The machine's last words, as recorded on August 27, 1993: "Egg freckles?"
joemono at 02:09 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

"No, I said T-W-O."

click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click...

"NO, don't type that out."

click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click-click...

"FUCK!"

click-click-click-click
goldfarb at 03:56 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

@joemono: Gold Star(tm) Sir!
s0crates82 at 04:53 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

@joemono:
@goldfarb:

hahahahhahaha
comp_wiz101 at 09:29 PM on 04/08/08
Reply by Email
*

...first message recorded by the general public: "Damn pizza hawking shift doesn't work right!"
SomeAudioGuy at 08:22 AM on 04/09/08
Reply by Email
*

If you're interested in the science of this, John B. Flowers wrote up a paper published in 1916 in 'Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers"
[books.google.com]

It's a dry read, but pretty incredible. With all of our fancy algorithms and powerful computers, we really haven't gotten THAT much farther.
geekgrrl at 09:54 AM on 04/09/08
Reply by Email
*

can you spell "ARHGHAGHGH" phonetically please, sir?
salamander42 at 05:54 AM on 04/10/08
Reply by Email
*

@Garrison Dean: Maybe because the first electronic computers didn't exist 'till the 30s and the first general purpose, re-programmable computer wasn't built 'till the 40s?