Show meet the jamji MR drillmaster DRILLI ASTER LARYNX 7 by ELMO SCOTT WATSON HERE la an old story m about a man who went to a circus and when L y be saw a giraffe for the first almo in his life exclaimed there aln t no such animal A few years ago it you had told the average american that there could be developed a mechanical man of steel and iron who could be told to 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 yet the ingenuity of an american in has developed such a man but what Is more remarkable still Is the fact that be has given his automaton a voice and it cin now talk back I 1 it you are inclined to say there aint no such danl meet mr and his inventor II 11 J wansley of the westinghouse electric and manufacturing when mr wensley first brought his mechanical man into being all that he could do was to obey certain commands to accomplish certain sped fled results lie could be called up on the telephone and would open and close switches and record the condl alon of instruments or mechanisms with which he waa connected but now mr wansley has given him a larynx and the process can be reversed so thatis a report becomes necessary mr s mechanical arm lifts the receiver of a telephone and his voice says athla Is calling main after the telephone con Is made the albeit a prearranged one Is continued until certain information Is con keyed As to how mr has found his voice it can best be explained in the words of mr wensley himself who bays to give the mechanism means for emitting articulate speech of bood quality use Is made of developments develop menta 1 in the talking movie industry A piece ot moving picture film about 15 or 20 feet long it spliced to make an endless loop in the present mode two sentences are spoken these are photographed near the two eiffes of the standard film the rest of it being left blank the sound appears in the form of closely spaced lines of various shades and widths and frequency in lamps with special straight filament are arranged with lenses to concentrate the light on a very nar above mr wensley speaks with mr like a perfect gentle man the westinghouse automaton re spends in a smooth well articulated voice the ability to talk Is leviy ac quiren for mr 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 oscilla alons recorded on a movie film in the box lower left international newsreel photo mr further demonstrated his manifold uses when he put a section of tre first battalion sixteenth infantry stationed at gov erners island new york city through a portion of the manual of arms re bently lower right here Is the of mr the westinghouse mechanical man mr wensley anven tor of the automaton seems puzzled as he looks ovder the vocal chord which Is nothing but a movie film of voice oscillations perhaps he wonders whether the language Is absolute ly fit and proper for reproduction be fore ladles or maybe he merely Is wondering how he can get this huge vocal organ into the windpipe of mr unlike human beings mr never suffers from colds row portion ot the film at any one time A small motor drives the dim whenever the vole la required A selecting mechanism in the lights either one ot the two lamps depending upon the sentence Ben tence desired the image of tl e filament Is projected through a narrow slot onto the speech record through which it passes to a photo cell A photocell passes current directly in proportion to the amount ot light falling on it As the lines on the film pass in aront of the light the corresponding change of currents which take place in the photocell photo cell are amplified through a special shielded three stage amplifier to a volume sufficient to operate a small loud speaker this speaker Is placed in front of the telephone transmitter and Is heard by the person at the other end of the telephone line ex acely as though a human being were speaking the words into the transmitter when a call Is put through to a substation equipped ath a having this voice attachment the person at the remote end will hear a voice saying speaking at randolph this will repeat a second tance and it the proper signal Is not given by means ot or other musical devices the will then hang up the receiver upon the that the call Is a wrens number call in the meantime the person at the alatan end has beard the number of the telephone to which he has been connected and should tt be a wrong number will be able to han up and signal the operator again to get the correct number however should the dispatcher have made this call with the expectation of operating something in the he listens or the voice and as soon as he has verified the correctness 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 by means of the whistle notes should a circuit breaker open automatically mati cally the Is put into action and lifts the receiver of the telephone and immediately begins jaylne at intervals athla la the callins for main this will be continued at intervals until the central operator Is able to complete the connection to the dispatcher s telephone As eoon as he hears this voice he will etca it by a blast of the proper whistle and then proceed to question the machine by further whistles as to what has happened the answers to these questions will be in the buzzer code which the dispatcher understands As soon as the whistle stops the idolce the motor Is also stopped and the lamps extinguished BO that the dim Is in use only a very short time ue the usefulness of mr tele vox Is at present restricted to operation in the field ot telephony this development has great sis cance for as mr kenaley says the addition of this automatic voice considerably broadens the possible field of application for the it Is not limited to the of the two sentences but may be made to answer quite a number ot questions correctly when necessity for such answers has been determined in advance I 1 or instance where it Is not desired to uso code signals indicating the amount ot water in the lr athla 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 dan hot it can be made to repeat any sort of routine report that can be selected by electrical circuits considering what has already been accomplished in the development of tills automaton it would be a rash person indeed who would venture to predict now what the future limitations in other fields of usefulness for mr and his children will be for more and more v e are beirn ing how foolish Is any declaration of it can t be done 1 when american in genius sets about to prove that it can no matter what it may be |