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Subject: Re: Collector's Corner..The Voice Feature

Author: Chuck

Date: 01:44:46 02/16/06

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On February 15, 2006 at 19:12:46, Steve B wrote:

>As is well known ,the inventor of the first commercially available computer to
>be able to play a game of chess was the legendary Ron Nelson
>
>not so well known however, is that Nelson also pioneered the use of the voice
>chip for his computers
>the very first computer to use this chip was called appropriately called the
>Voice Chess Challenger released in 1979
>it had a cold ,computer like sound to it, and could only call out the moves and
>make a few simple statements
>the VCC was released in two versions..the VCC and the Advanced VCC
>
>
>to celebrate the use of this new feature Fidelity released the VCC and AVCC in
>two tournament sized wooden boards
>the boards could not recognize the moves and the moves had to be inputted via
>the Keyboard as in the VCC-AVCC
>but the boards themselves and the pieces were magnificent and worth owning just
>as a chess set alone
>
>the Fidelity Decorator Challenger:
>http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cpaa2@sbcglobal.net/detail?.dir=fc80&.dnm=44fb.jpg&.src=ph
>
>the Fidelity Grandmaster Voice:
>
>http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/cpaa2@sbcglobal.net/detail?.dir=fc80&.dnm=1b67.jpg&.src=ph
>
>to this day Nelson continues to perfect the voice feature increasing the
>vocabulary with each new release for Excalibur
>
>the upcoming Talking Chess Phantom Robot will feature the most elaborate voice
>feature ever heard in a dedicated computer to date
>
>Speechless Regards
>Steve

This is great direction IMO, I have always held that the computer should adapt
to the human, the human should not have to adapt to the computer. I certainly
hope we have the opportunity to buy one of these new developments and of course
I hope it can play chess well, too. :)

Cheers,

Chuck



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