From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.2 (2018-09-13) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_SIGNED,DKIM_VALID, DKIM_VALID_AU,FREEMAIL_FORGED_FROMDOMAIN,FREEMAIL_FROM, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS,HTML_MESSAGE,MAILING_LIST_MULTI, RCVD_IN_DNSWL_NONE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.2 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (minnie.tuhs.org [45.79.103.53]) by inbox.vuxu.org (OpenSMTPD) with ESMTP id 493e2bd8 for ; Thu, 29 Nov 2018 17:43:17 +0000 (UTC) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id C8A30A1F10; Fri, 30 Nov 2018 03:43:16 +1000 (AEST) Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 480F6A1F00; Fri, 30 Nov 2018 03:42:45 +1000 (AEST) Received: by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix, from userid 112) id 55D50A1F00; Fri, 30 Nov 2018 03:42:38 +1000 (AEST) Received: from mail-lj1-f170.google.com (mail-lj1-f170.google.com [209.85.208.170]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 48596A1EFF for ; Fri, 30 Nov 2018 03:42:32 +1000 (AEST) Received: by mail-lj1-f170.google.com with SMTP id v15-v6so2490748ljh.13 for ; Thu, 29 Nov 2018 09:42:32 -0800 (PST) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20161025; h=mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date:message-id:subject:to :cc; bh=fHDvx7uG3BZIxL9FjjmNdq74ChO1dYg9B+qiZJjyKKA=; b=ADSDQFu7YO98+wFQIisLE6wU4M9darUuIRWM8VXodHkopIrxEq2iXH8FZoviNPIsCt +s69KAxPYXyvmYweJXQFuhetfj1+tdWPLSj3UW1YpBVRx6uQ1F/eVvnmqpk4wWKBbdfe WMqwu7pOCMXk0EXlERyxDA14FrtTSQuu4peyFzhfgCv60Dr2tqXP9klm2t9xgYyW010e zpULbkiiKqT8wTgNoa63f2cvmyUO7OazpsNzXkUhqiBAaw7DmTNAzxuF/M4uGgfJDeh9 bN9vTdrc7Z9Qq4EpyD87uce05AZzV6O05FyJiQPGw47L6VQOHEER96YmjNRsfxYVEo8x 3X+Q== X-Google-DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=1e100.net; s=20161025; h=x-gm-message-state:mime-version:references:in-reply-to:from:date :message-id:subject:to:cc; bh=fHDvx7uG3BZIxL9FjjmNdq74ChO1dYg9B+qiZJjyKKA=; b=g4rBRgLJOu5BCn5vi61SJ+PKN604RfozkWO1O9aDGbtKLbGagIp3QRvhx44ynQqyOn xYl53wWhZgqVEGd2+ZXsE5GJtAqiTkQG8hZY2wxHjviHACPk9vLiuJLUO8Dlkl4bbofp H3r7J/OUZO2R3N+cni61D4oZ8x+Eo6uwT6zwNhlJXuKH/7XtyI/F1DJVnvrve+6PCxe6 pmd4zCI6rbaoP4yc47jQ0uYoH0mR66kUysOCRlwwdmLX28i1A/zeqj6+yFu2J1ZdhnRR R1c2YCETl93oP7+NWZbdRnzMC9iFk7PkcY5Dk7kubw8a+5FY5jWMFRf1fa3vdTw+fvXS cmKQ== X-Gm-Message-State: AA+aEWZ7cgzvkEBIop0i2kxuMkUhwENOmtNgCUlMHihLym+zr4K7fCTs tFRyLksu3rpsHGvBUIWKq/6dNZJykseNgoZU+Qc= X-Google-Smtp-Source: AFSGD/X36VQh8QVnKSYDx4ZoIyiA1D/0REjT76u+qNhDXqK5oNQDtTIy4riPksGXFXNZVoIYqHkV8eu8Y982muCENrs= X-Received: by 2002:a2e:9017:: with SMTP id h23-v6mr1510232ljg.71.1543513350281; Thu, 29 Nov 2018 09:42:30 -0800 (PST) MIME-Version: 1.0 References: <201811291707.wATH7XsM107856@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> In-Reply-To: <201811291707.wATH7XsM107856@tahoe.cs.Dartmouth.EDU> From: Eric Wayte Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2018 12:41:51 -0500 Message-ID: To: doug@cs.dartmouth.edu Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="000000000000f322be057bd134f3" Subject: Re: [TUHS] In Memoriam: J. F. Ossanna X-BeenThere: tuhs@minnie.tuhs.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.20 Precedence: list List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Cc: tuhs@tuhs.org Errors-To: tuhs-bounces@minnie.tuhs.org Sender: "TUHS" --000000000000f322be057bd134f3 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="UTF-8" http://www.lostepcot.com/communicore.html - there's a description of Phraser, which was the name given to speak at EPCOT. I remember playing with it, and getting it to say bad words! On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 12:08 PM Doug McIlroy wrote: > > Joe sold the (not really existent) UNIX system to the patent department > of AT&T, > > which in turn bought the urgently needed PDP11. Without that there would > be no > > UNIX. Without Joe there would be no UNIX. > > That one's an urban legend. The PDP-11 was indeed a gift from another > department, > thanks to a year-end budget surplus. Unix was up and running on that > machine when > Joe corralled the patent department. > > Nevertheless the story is consistent with Joe's talent for playing (or > skirting) > the system to get things done. After Joe, the talent resurfaced in the > person of Fred Grampp. Lots of tales await Grampp's popping up from Dave > Horsford's calendar. > > > Runoff was moved to Multics fairly early: here's its entry from the > Multics > > glossary: "A Multics BCPL version of runoff was written by Doug McIlroy > > and Bob Morris." > > Morris did one port and called it roff. I did the BCPL one, adding > registers, > but not macros. Molly Wagner contributed a hyphenation algorithm. Ken > and/or Dennis redid roff in PDP-11 assembler. Joe started afresh for the > grander nroff, including macros. Then Joe bought a phototypesetter ... > > > Sun was sort of the Bell Labs of the time ... I wanted to go there and > had > > to work at it a bit but I got there. Was Bell Labs in the 60's like that? > > Yes, in desirability. But Bell Labs had far more diverse interests. > Telephones, > theoretical physics, submarine cables, music, speech, fiber optics, Apollo. > Wahtever you wanted to know or work on, you were likely to find kindred > types and willing management. > > > was that voice synthesizer a votrax or some other thing? > > Yes. Credit Joe again. He had a penchant for hooking up novel equipment. > When the Votrax arrived, its output was made accessible by phone and also > by loudspeaker in the Unix lab. You had to feed it a stream of ASCII- > encoded phonemes. Lee McMahon promptly became adept at writing them > down. After a couple of days' play in the lab, Lee was working in his > office with the Votrax on speakerphone in the background. Giving no > notice, he typed the phonemes for "It sounds better over the telephone". > Everyone in the lab heard it clearly--our own "Watson, come here" moment. > > But phonemes are tedious. Believing that it could ease the > task of phonetic transcription, I wrote a phonics program, "speak", > through which you could feed English text for conversion to > phonemes. At speak's inaugural run, Bob Morris typed one word, > "oarlock", and pronounced the program a success. Luckily he didn't > try "coworker", which the program would have rendered as "cow orker". > Max Matthews from acoustics research called it a breakthrough. > The acoustics folks could synthesize much better speech, but it > took minutes of computing to synthesize seconds of sounds. So > the Unix lab heard more synthetic speech in a few days than the > experts had created over all time. > > One thing we learned is that people quickly get used > to poor synthetic speech just like they get used to > foreign accents. In fact, non-native speakers opined > that the Votrax was easier to understand than real people, > probably due to the bit of silence that the speak program > inserted between words to help with mental segmentation. > One evening someone in the Unix room playing with the > synthesizer noticed a night janitor listening in from > the corridor. In a questionable abuse of a non-exempt > employee, the Unix person typed, "Stop hanging around > around and get back to work." The poor janitor fled. > > AT&T installed speak for the public to play with at Epcot. > Worried that folks would enter bad words that everybody > standing around could hear, they asked if I could filter them > out. Sure, I said, just provide me with a list of what to > delete. Duly, I received on letterhead from the VP for > public relations a list of perhaps twenty bad words. (I have > always wondered about the politics of asking a secretary to > type that letter.) It was reported that girls would try the > machine on people's names, while boys would discover that > the machine "didn't know" bad words (though it would happily > pronounce phonetic misspellings). Alas, I mistakenly discarded > the infamous letter in cleaning house to leave Bell Labs. > > Doug > > -- Eric Wayte --000000000000f322be057bd134f3 Content-Type: text/html; charset="UTF-8" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
http= ://www.lostepcot.com/communicore.html=C2=A0- there's a description = of Phraser, which was the name given to speak at EPCOT.=C2=A0 I remember pl= aying with it, and getting it to say bad words!

On Thu, Nov 29, 2018 at 12:08 PM Doug McIlroy= <doug@cs.dartmouth.edu>= wrote:
> Joe sold the (not real= ly existent) UNIX system to the patent department of AT&T,
> which in turn bought the urgently needed PDP11. Without that there wou= ld be no
> UNIX. Without Joe there would be no UNIX.

That one's an urban legend. The PDP-11 was indeed a gift from another d= epartment,
thanks to a year-end budget surplus. Unix was up and running on that machin= e when
Joe corralled the patent department.

Nevertheless the story is consistent with Joe's talent for playing (or = skirting)
the system to get things done. After Joe, the talent resurfaced in the
person of Fred Grampp. Lots of tales await Grampp's popping up from Dav= e
Horsford's calendar.

> Runoff was moved to Multics fairly early: here's its entry from th= e Multics
> glossary: "A Multics BCPL version of runoff was written by Doug M= cIlroy
> and Bob=C2=A0 Morris."

Morris did one port and called it roff. I did the BCPL one, adding register= s,
but not macros. Molly Wagner contributed a hyphenation algorithm. Ken
and/or Dennis redid roff in PDP-11 assembler. Joe started afresh for the grander nroff, including macros. Then Joe bought a phototypesetter ...

> Sun was sort of the Bell Labs of the time ... I wanted to go there and= had
> to work at it a bit but I got there. Was Bell Labs in the 60's lik= e that?

Yes, in desirability. But Bell Labs had far more diverse interests. Telepho= nes,
theoretical physics, submarine cables, music, speech, fiber optics, Apollo.=
Wahtever you wanted to know or work on, you were likely to find kindred
types and willing management.

> was that voice synthesizer a votrax or some other thing?

Yes. Credit Joe again. He had a penchant for hooking up novel equipment. When the Votrax arrived, its output was made accessible by phone and also by loudspeaker in the Unix lab. You had to feed it a stream of ASCII-
encoded phonemes. Lee McMahon promptly became adept at writing them
down. After a couple of days' play in the lab, Lee was working in his office with the Votrax on speakerphone in the background. Giving no
notice, he typed the phonemes for "It sounds better over the telephone= ".
Everyone in the lab heard it clearly--our own "Watson, come here"= moment.

But phonemes are tedious. Believing that it could ease the
task of phonetic transcription, I wrote a phonics program, "speak"= ;,
through which you could feed English text for conversion to
phonemes. At speak's inaugural run, Bob Morris typed one word,
"oarlock", and pronounced the program a success. Luckily he didn&= #39;t
try "coworker", which the program would have rendered as "co= w orker".
Max Matthews from acoustics research called it a breakthrough.
The acoustics folks could synthesize much better speech, but it
took minutes of computing to synthesize seconds of sounds. So
the Unix lab heard more synthetic speech in a few days than the
experts had created over all time.

One thing we learned is that people quickly get used
to poor synthetic speech just like they get used to
foreign accents. In fact, non-native speakers opined
that the Votrax was easier to understand than real people,
probably due to the bit of silence that the speak program
inserted between words to help with mental segmentation.
One evening someone in the Unix room playing with the
synthesizer noticed a night janitor listening in from
the corridor. In a questionable abuse of a non-exempt
employee, the Unix person typed, "Stop hanging around
around and get back to work." The poor janitor fled.

AT&T installed speak for the public to play with at Epcot.
Worried that folks would enter bad words that everybody
standing around could hear, they asked if I could filter them
out. Sure, I said, just provide me with a list of what to
delete. Duly, I received on letterhead from the VP for
public relations a list of perhaps twenty bad words. (I have
always wondered about the politics of asking a secretary to
type that letter.) It was reported that girls would try the
machine on people's names, while boys would discover that
the machine "didn't know" bad words (though it would happily<= br> pronounce phonetic misspellings). Alas, I mistakenly discarded
the infamous letter in cleaning house to leave Bell Labs.

Doug



--
Eric Wayte --000000000000f322be057bd134f3--