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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?"
So, a quick search brought up this article from 2008 by Paul Shindman. http://www.canadasisrael.ca/2008/09/can-you-still-hitchhike-in-canada/ It looks to be just a reference, but you may want to contact Paul directly to see if he knows anything else. Happy hunting.
I remember playing with that machine way back in the early days of the science centre - I didn't think anybody else on the planet even remembered it.
I doubt that Philips would have done a one off project like that - it probably would have been subcontracted to a small, local engineering firm.
My rights don't need management.
The part of Philips that was into speech synthesis and recognition went through many different incarnations until it became part of Nuance.
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
I emailed Professor Csele and he is alive and well. I mentioned this posting but did not inquire about the coffee machine. I inquired about his reconstruction of a 1969 laser system and requested if he could scan or otherwise digitize the schematic. There's a schematic on a fragile piece of paper he has that I'd like to see others get some benefit from. I'd also like to seen the odd ball logic system of that laser as it's one I've not heard of before.
He has a keyword spam bypass, it's on the webpage.
I'd go on a Vegan diet but the delivery time from Vega is too long. --brownkitty