Glimpse of Stephen Hawking's Computer

kenekaplan writes "Intel application engineer Travis Bonifield has been working closely with Hawking to communicate with the world for a decade. He's traveled from the United States to England every few years to hand-deliver Hawking a customized PC. Bonifield talks about the technology that powers the customized system." Hawking's latest machine is a Thinkpad x220. Lately he's been trouble speaking due to weakened cheek muscles (down to one word per minute). New Scientist has a brief interview with Hawking's outgoing technician on the challenges he faced. It turns out Hawking is still using a DECtalk (despite some reports suggesting otherwise).

Comments

He identifies with the voice now

[Viol8]

So why the surprise that he still uses the DECTalk?

In this case if it is broke then someone probably will fix it.

Re:He identifies with the voice now

[Nick Fel]

But I've never understood why the DECTalk voice can't be replicated in software. There must be someone capable and willing to do it for the publicity.

Re:He identifies with the voice now

[Joce640k]

I read an article where he said he takes the robotic voice very personally, he regards it as his voice.

He's a geek so wants the real thing, not some stupid software emulation. What's the fun of a wheelchair if you can't strap loads of wires and circuit boards to it?

Re:He identifies with the voice now

[vlm]

I read an article where he said he takes the robotic voice very personally, he regards it as his voice.

He's a geek so wants the real thing, not some stupid software emulation.

The first thing that instantly struck me is its rather like women and their rack. Some fraction love the idea of an upgrade, some hate the idea of an upgrade, but the feature that makes it most like the female chest situation is that Everybody Seems to Have A Strong Opinion about what upgrade strategy, if any, is best, and all the women I've talked to about that topic pretty much want all the folks with opinions one way or another to F off and when they want an opinion they'll darn well ask for it first.

The other interesting thing Ive not considered is the legal / financial / employment minefield of whoever is the "new voice of Hawking" is absolutely going to advertise that, and he might not be cool with getting into that whole scene. So on one hand he should get money, on the other hand he doesn't need money, on the other hand the money would be coming from his fellow sufferers so that would make him a jerk, on the other hand he could donate his endorsement money to a charity, but what if the device he signs the contract for sucks and he wants to switch back, but if he doesn't sign an endorsement contract he's basically pulling money out of a charity, I can see a guy just saying F-it forget about the whole topic now back to black hole thermodynamics.

The final part is /. and IT in general are populated by noobs who think nothing of upgrading because they've only been in the game 2 years so whats one upgrade during an entire lifetime? But he's pretty much in it for life, and I know from personal experience that when you can skip upgrade cycles, you're best off doing so if at all possible. Sometimes not possible. At work I do not scrap the old gear and spec out an entirely new amplifier line solely because one corporation released one new microwave RF transistor today (and someone will release another next week, repeat into the indefinite future). I can totally see the guy saying there is no point in upgrading every time something new is released and therefore living life as a perma-noob, especially if the performance gain is minor. I'm sure the world would rather have him thinking about physics than endlessly re-learning this months new synth release.

Re:He identifies with the voice now

[mwvdlee]

Actually, that statement says nothing about whether he's a geek or not. It only states he does not want the voice changed; i.e. the audio coming out of some speaker. He says nothing about what hardware of software that should be used.
Judging from his attitude towards switching control mechanisms, I'd say he's anything but a nerd; he seems to prefer stability/reliability above all else. Logical, considering without controls, he's effectively a vegetable.

One word a minute

[EponymousCustard]

And twitter users think they have problems with 140 characters.

At one word a minute, you get to really think about what you are gonna say.

Re:One word a minute

[ajo_arctus]

A very smart guy whom could average a few words a minute jumped at the concept of switching architectures on the suggestion of an industry shill at a conference?

What? You appear to have read the article but completely missed some really important pieces of the puzzle. Here,

Stephen and Gordon met at a conference around 1997. Gordon noted that Stephen was using an AMD machine. Gordon asked Stephen, "Would you like to use an Intel computer moving forward? We'd be happy to build that for you and support it."

The article makes it very clear that the Gordon in that sentence is Gordon Moore. You know, of Moore's law fame. One of the guys who started Intel the first place. Calling Moore an industry Shill is like saying Gates shilled for Microsoft or Jobs shilled for Apple.

The article is just some guy's anecdote. Don't get so worked up.

DecTalk is a warhorse

[assemblerex]

Why the Dectalk hate? It served the world well for many many years and will for a lot longer than most people think.

Re:DecTalk is a warhorse

[ciderbrew]

Maybe he want to keep using it as it is now *his* voice. Beyond any technical issue, that bit of kit is synonymous with him and he doesn't want it replaced upgraded or changed.

Re:DecTalk is a warhorse

[MichaelSmith]

Does DECTalk posses some unique quality that is not easily replicated?

It is Hawkings voice.

Re:DecTalk is a warhorse

[petermgreen]

The big difference between Ebert and hawkings situation is that ebert was only forced to use a speech synth fairly recently. So probablly more people are going to know him by his natural voice than by the synth he uses.

Hawking has been using that speech synth for many years and I strongly suspect more people know him by that voice than know him by his natural voice.

Wrong question

[Viol8]

"asking why someone uses a 30 year old electronic device when newer and therefore likely more capable options exist"

You should be asking - why someone WOULDN'T use a 30 year old device when it does everything they need it to do. Not everyone thinks upgrading for the sake of it is a worthwhile pursuit especially if its as critical as your only means to communicate.

Re:Wrong question

[Lumpy]

From my experience.. the 30 year old device is built better, higher quality and will continue to operate for another 50 years. Unlike the utter crap that is available today that you will be lucky to keep working for 5 years.

Same for everyone with recordings of their voice

[Viol8]

None of us really recognise our recorded voice as our own even though we know it is so I guess thats not much of a surprise especially given that 30 years has passed in his case too. I'd be interested to know what Hawkings internal voice in his head sounds like - is it his original voice or is it his speech synthesizer?

Re:US Customs, TSA

[Amouth]

Simple - don't fly on the mass transit passenger planes.. Private charter planes do not have to go through TSA check points.. So the real rich and government guys never even experience it..