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Show MiM&TlVmLn ike Meelmmfeml JMmm A r- ' a vx A i r-v?' 4 is MR.TEi.EYOX, THE DR.UUMASTER. MR-.TELEVOX'5 .LARYNX 7 i By ELMO SCOTT WATSON ' fr HERE is an old story ra'1 about a man who went - II to a circus, and when J he saw a giraffe for ar the first time in his ffc.nrt-:.or life, exclaimed : "There -' ain't no such animal. f-S'f--" A few years' ago, if " r H ' you had told the aver i o-UjaJJ age American that tliere could be devel-i devel-i oped a mechanical "man" of steel aad iron who could be told to per-:; per-:; form certain tasks and would do them, his reply would probably be : .similar to the exclamation of the old fellow who saw his first giraffe. And a yet the ingenuity of an American in-s- ventor has developed such a man, but :- what is more remarkable still is the s fact that he has given his automaton l- a "voice," and it can now "talk back!" 1 If you are inclined to say "There ain't no such man!" meet "Mr. Televox" aud his inventor, R. J. Wensley of the ,- Westingliouse Electric and Manufac- turing company ! When Mr. Wensley first brought his "f mechanical "man" into being, all that l "lie" could do was to obey certain "". commands to accomplish certain specl- tied results, "lie" could be called up-r" up-r" on the teleplione and would open and close switches and record the condi- tinn of instruments or mechanisms with which "he" was connected. But now Mr. Wensley has given him a "larynx," aud the process can be reversed, so !t; tlmt If n rpnni-t becomes necessary "Mr. Televox's" mechanical arm lifts the receiver of a telephone and his ! "voice" says "This Is Televox calling if'"1 -Main niOO." After the telephone con- a'! nectton is made, the "conversation" i'3 (albeit a prearranged one) is contiu- isf tied until certain information is con- r-- veyed. - As to how "Mr. Televox" has "found 0 tils voice," it can best be explained In iti the words of Mr. Wensley himself, who says: To give the mechanism means for I mlttlng articulate speech of good " j j quality, use is made of developments "V, j In the "talking movie" Industry. A B"' j piece of moving picture film about 15 i-;S: or 20 feet long is spliced to make an ,",. endless loop. In the present model !l , i two sentences are spoken. These are J Photographed near the two edges of the cj: j standard film, the rest of It being left V 1 blank. The sound appears in the form , of closely spaced lines of various 1 ' shades and widths' and frequency, tn-creJ? tn-creJ? dividual lamps with Bpecial straight (iS.-. filament are arranged with lenses to concentrate the lieht on a very nar- Above: Mr. Wensley speaks with "Mr. Televox!" Like a perfect gentleman, gentle-man, the Westinghouse automaton responds re-sponds in a smooth, well-articulated voice. The ability to talk is newly acquired, ac-quired, for "Mr. Televox" is less than a year old. Unlike human beings, he has an external "larynx," which is the large box at the right. The "vocal chord" is composed of voice oscillations oscilla-tions recorded on a movie film in the box. Lower left: (International News-reel News-reel Photo) "Mr. Televox" further demonstrated his manifold uses when he put a section of the First battalion, Sixteenth infantry, stationed at Governors Gov-ernors island. New York city, through a portion of the manual of arms recently. re-cently. Lower right: Here is the "larnyx" of "Mr. Televox," the Westinghouse mechanical man. Mr. Wensley, inventor inven-tor of the automaton, seems puzzled as he looks over the "vocal chord," which is nothing but a movie film of voice oscillations. Perhaps he wonders won-ders whether the language is absolutely absolute-ly fit and proper for reproduction before be-fore ladies. Or maybe he merely is wondering how he can get this huge "vocal organ" into the windpipe of "Mr. Televox." Unlike human beings, Mr. Televox never suffers from colds. ' row portion of the film at any one time. , A small, motor drives the dim wken-ever wken-ever the voice is required. A selecting Loni.m in the televox lights either one of the two lamps depending upon the sentence desired. The image of the llament is projected through a nar-"ot nar-"ot ontoPthe eech record through which It passes to a photo-cell. A photo-rel photo-rel passes current directly In propor-o" propor-o" ToSZ amount of lt 'ailing on rorthfughtntheecorespPoanding 'n.e of cur fnts which take place ?n the Photo cell are amplified through L" special shielded three stage- ampl -fler to a volume sufficient to opera e 1 1 ifl sneaker This speaker Is Ice n Mot m telephone trans-Setter trans-Setter and Is heard by the person at re other end of the telephone line ex-.,lv ex-.,lv as though a human being were speaking heS words Into the trans- mXn a call is Put through tc , a sub- lng tnis vuii. hear a voico at fnh: r.TTrevoXesPea,ng :?Handolvh saying, Te leox v second time 6nd if tThe proP r Signal not given and If tne ij i her muslcal rh:;in1lsraUPwr,ontrnaumber''ca,t. In the meantime the person at the distan. end has heard the number of the telephone tele-phone to which he has been connected and should It be a wrong number, will be able to hang up and signal the operator op-erator again to get the correct number. num-ber. However, should the dispatcher have made this call with the expectation expec-tation of operating something in the ubstation, he listens for the voice and as soon as he has verified the correctness correct-ness of the number of the substation as indicated by the telephone number, he blows a blast on the proper whistle and the voice ceases and the machine is then in condition for further operation opera-tion by means of the Whistle notes. Should a circuit breaker open automatically, auto-matically, the Televox is put into action ac-tion and lifts the receiver of the telephone tele-phone and immediately begins saying at intervals, "This Is the Televox calling call-ing for Main 5000." This will be continued con-tinued at intervals until the central operator is able to complete the connection con-nection to the dispatcher's telephone. As soon as he hears this voice, he will stop it by a blast of the proper whistle and then proceed to question the machine ma-chine by further whistles as to what nas happened. The answers to these questions will be in the buzzer code which the dispatcher understands. As soon as the whistle stops the oice the motor is also stopped and the lamps extinguished so that the film is in use only a very short time. While the usefulness of "Mr. Televox" Tele-vox" is at present restricted to operation oper-ation in the field of telephony, this newest development has great significance. sig-nificance. For, as Mr. Wensley says, 5 "The addition of this automatic voice considerably broadens the possible field of application for the Televox. It is not limited to the speaking of the two sentences but may be made to answer quite a number of questions correctly when necessity tor sucu uu-swers uu-swers has been determined in advance. For instance, .where it is not desired to use code signals indicating the amount of water in the reservoir, this mechanism can be made to state the height of water in feet, or It can be made to say that machine is cool or a machine is hot, or a machine is dangerously dan-gerously hot. It can be made to repeat re-peat any sort of routine report that can be selected by electrical circuits." Considering what has already been accomplished in the development of this automaton, it would be a rash person Indeed who would venture to predict now what the future limitations limita-tions in othlr fields of usefulness for "Mr. Televox" and his "children" will be. For, more and more, we are learning learn-ing how foolish Is any declaration of "It can't be done!" wlien American inventive in-ventive genius set? about to prove that It can, no matter what "it" may be. |