Here’s an interesting article from the San Francisco Chronicle that caught my eye. Published just after Hawking passed away it tells the story of the efforts of a dedicated technical team, including some of the original developers of Stephen Hawking’s voice synthesizer, to upgrade his ‘voice’ 30-something years after it had been developed for him. The hardware it was running on was showing signs of wear and it may have failed at any moment. Hawking was still using the CallText 5010 speech synthesizer, a version last upgraded in 1986. In nearly 30 years he had never switched to newer technology. Hawking liked the voice just the way it was and had stubbornly refused other options. If it failed entirely his distinctive voice would be lost to the ages.
It’s a great story telling how the team worked to update long-defunct technology (30 years is a millennium in IT terms) but upgrade it they had to or the world-famous professor and his immediately-recognisable, distinctive robotic voice would be silenced. Hawking died in March, very soon after the team finally managed to complete the work to Prof Hawking’s satisfaction.
Jason Fagone finishes his story by stating the CallText boards have become part of Hawking’s estate to be used as his family wishes, so too the new emulator software, which is a little spooky given there’s now no reason why the professor’s voice can’t last forever.
