Information On Philips' "Coffee" Machine?

RogueWarrior65 writes "In the early 1970s, I was fortunate to discover the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto. For the Gen Y'ers out there who never knew a world without computers, to Gen X'ers, this place was the future. Computer technology was just beginning to be exposed to the world and this museum had the coolest exhibits around, most of which were interactive. One of the exhibits was a machine reminiscent of an old vending machine. On its face was a large circuit board with lights that spelled out the word 'coffee.' There were several dials and a button, which, when pressed, would cause the machine to speak the word. The knobs adjusted various inflections and tonal qualities of the speech. Feeling nostalgic, I inquired of the museum about this exhibit. Was it still there? If not, was it in storage somewhere and could I purchase it. I was told that the machine was developed by Philips Electronics but the exhibit was no longer in their collection. Then I asked Philips about it and was told that no, they have nothing in the archives, no schematics or parts list. A Google search is came up empty as well. Does anyone have any more information on this gadget?"

Comments

dorkface

[parasite]

has Slashdot.org turned into this guy's personal Wanted/Looking classified ads section? How did this get posted

Re:a sense of purpose?

[evel aka matt]

The purpose seems to be to "ASK SLASHDOT."

Re:Best ask slashdot in a long time

[blind biker]

I was going to post the exact same META: this is by far the best, most interesting Ask Slashdot entry I have ever seen. I wish the asker good luck.

By the way, I'm a hardware-kind-of-guy, and am of the same (retro) generation, so I will be following this adventure with much interest!

Interactive science slowly being eradicated

[p3bf]

I loved that "coffee" machine. And all the interactive exhibits that are no longer there, everything from the huge logic gates to the parabolic microphones. At some point I think society switched from learning how to build things to just using them, and a lot of these kinds of changes reflect themselves in our "science" centres as well.