"This Is DigiTalker"

While watching the Avengers: Age of Ultron movie, at some point when one of the computer voices was speaking, a memory of the "This Is DigiTalker" voice suddenly came to mind. Back in the mid-1980s while working at Westinghouse in Annapolis, Maryland, a couple of the engineers brought a DigiTalker prototype experimentation board into the super-classified area where I worked. According to National Semiconductor's datasheet, it was introduced sometime around 1980. The programmable digital voice IC was a big deal in that unlike other devices that had a fixed set of phrases (see my frightening Clarance the Stack-A-Round Clown), DigiTalker had a large list and could, in later versions, potentially speak almost anything. It was a big deal at the time. DigiTalker went on to become "The Voice of the Elevator Industry."

National Semiconductor' MM54104 DIGITALKER

DIGITALKER Video

Datasheet for National Semiconductor's DT1050 DIGITALKER Vocabulary Kit

 

 

Posted October 12, 2015