Stephen Hawkins
 

I watched a programme recently which had Stephen Hawkins in it and I was wondering :wonder: why does his computer voice thingy sound like that :confused:. If it was me it would sound like Bugs Bunny or Joe Pasquale ;).

Hawking.

I remember watching a tv prog a few years ago, apparently his 'voice' uses the the same circuitry that British Telecom used in the early 80's for there voice recording etc.

He was offered a more up-to-date version, but he refused !

i heard he kept it as people reckognized it as his own.

Professor Hawking sees it as his voice and thus doesn't wish to change it.

Richard Nixon off Futurama.

LOL

HAHA

I didn't read the bit in inverted commas. I thought you meant the dude offof Scooby-Doo.....................

Mine would be a Poddington pea. ;) :D

mine would be Ba from the a-team

hey fool, i aint getting on no plane

There was also an artical a while back about the whole voice thing, and that it was starting to fail. However the replacements available were NOT able to emulate THAT voice, so it would require a change (quite why I dont know) but he was less than happy about that too.

Remembering how long he has been using that speech system, it would be like one of us deciding to change our voices after 20-30 years of life.

Fair play to the man I say :)

id have "makapaka" from in the night garden lol

Sorry, but this still makes me laugh.
http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1002/...90e76e.jpg?v=0

Your posts always have to have something about the birds and the bees in them;)

yup he could have an updated one no problems, but he likes the fact that his robot style one is instantly recognisable as his "own"

mine would be "shaun the sheep"

I think that Hawking originally used a DECtalk box (Wiki seems to confirm this).

It came with several voices, from the "standard" Perfect Paul and Beautiful Betty through to Hugh Harry, Frail Frank and Kit the Kid (although my favourite was "Rough Rita" ;) ). You could do fantastic things tweaking the phonemes, and it could sing "Strangers in the night" in a way that was almost indistinguishable from Sinatra himself! I guess that Stephen was more interested on quantum watsits rather than a cool voice ;)

DECtalk was years ahead of it's time, but in those days getting BT approval to connect it to a phone line was near impossible. However back in the early eighties you could call up the US stock exchange and get it to read out the share prices (using one of those "modern" touch-tone" phones). I remember programming one to read out e-mails at DECUS in Amsterdam in 1984!

ISTR that Soundblaster bought the technology in the mid nineties (it was on my AWE32 soundcard) and now Digital Equipment (and Compaq) are consigned to the great tech but crap business dustbin in the sky.

mb (having a quick flick through "DECtalk - A Guide to Voice", first printed in July 1985 - sniff!)

I got told steven hawkings date walked out on him as she didn't like his tone. :)

You should'nt get too upset about what some people write on a Car Forum. Just turn a blind eye if you dont like it, otherwise you will just constantly get yourself in a state......a bit like the PC brigade :)

You mean brackets? Stephen H would be laughing at you if he read this. :D

its been edited so that that finished with. But in real life i am terrible when i hear people been rude about the mentally Ill etc . i worked with many years ago and have a great respect for them.

laughing

typing

lmfao!

My first post deletion in 5 years :cry: Apologies to those I offended. I had absolutely no idea that a comment like that could possibly offend anyone at all.
Professor Hawking, I didnt mean you any harm. God bless the great work you do with your physics 'n' stuff. You are not a fielded nor a greenhoused product, you are the greatest brain this country has ever produced :notworthy.
Also, apologies to any fielded or greenhouse products who may be reading and might have been offended at the thought of being compared to the great physicist :o.

Hope that's cleared that up!