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The Euphonia was a talking machine created in the early to mid-nineteenth century by the Austrian inventor Joseph Faber and exhibited in 1845 in Philadelphia and in 1846 in London's Egyptian Hall. [1] An earlier version of the invention had been destroyed in 1844 by Faber. [2]
A mechanical device that he had reportedly spent over twenty-five years developing, Faber's "Fabulous Talking Machine" was constructed of several different mechanisms and instruments: a piano, a bellows, and a mechanical replica of the human throat and vocal organs. By pressing the keys on the keyboard, a human operator produced sounds that inflated the bellows and caused the mechanical mouth to open, the mechanical tongue to be lifted, and the mechanical jaws to move. Able to produce sentences in English, French, and German, the Euphonia was reported by The London Journal to speak all three with a German accent, a fact attributed to the native language (German) of the inventor. It was P.T. Barnum who renamed the talking machine "Euphonia", which was a striking, if probably coincidental, token of its ideological resemblance to Hector Berlioz' utopia, which bore the same name. [3]
The Euphonia was not a novel contraption since it was similar to other automatons invented, particularly those that followed the general mechanics of serial assembly and the specific method of decomposing and reconstituting language through mechanized "scansion". [4] A related technology was John Clark's The Eureka machine, which was invented a year prior to Euphonia's debut. It was, however, designed with a different function, which was to produce hexameters instead of sound. [4]
The Euphonia was exhibited with a female mask covering the mechanical mouth, tongue, and jaw and at times with a dress hanging below the mask, the Euphonia would perform for audiences, pretending to respond to or mimic the words of the keyboard operator. During its appearance in London, the automaton was also presented as a man dressed like a Turk. [1]
In describing the Euphonia, the 19th century American scientist Joseph Henry explained "that sixteen levers or keys 'like those of a piano' projected sixteen elementary sounds by which 'every word in all European languages can be distinctly produced.' A seventeenth key opened and closed the equivalent of the glottis, an aperture between the vocal cords. 'The plan of the machine is the same as that of the human organs of speech, the several parts being worked by strings and levers instead of tendons and muscles.' [5] Another account by London theater manager John Hollingshead described the experience as both sad and depressing: "It wanted little imagination to make the very few visitors believe that the figure contained an imprisoned human - or half human - being, bound to speak slowly when tormented by the unseen power outside," and that "no one thought for a moment that they were being fooled by a second edition of the Invisible Girl fraud." [1]
Alexander Graham Bell was a Scottish-born Canadian-American inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T) in 1885.
A lever is a simple machine consisting of a beam or rigid rod pivoted at a fixed hinge, or fulcrum. A lever is a rigid body capable of rotating on a point on itself. On the basis of the locations of fulcrum, load and effort, the lever is divided into three types. It is one of the six simple machines identified by Renaissance scientists. A lever amplifies an input force to provide a greater output force, which is said to provide leverage, which is mechanical advantage gained in the system, equal to the ratio of the output force to the input force. As such, the lever is a mechanical advantage device, trading off force against movement.
A machine is a physical system using power to apply forces and control movement to perform an action. The term is commonly applied to artificial devices, such as those employing engines or motors, but also to natural biological macromolecules, such as molecular machines. Machines can be driven by animals and people, by natural forces such as wind and water, and by chemical, thermal, or electrical power, and include a system of mechanisms that shape the actuator input to achieve a specific application of output forces and movement. They can also include computers and sensors that monitor performance and plan movement, often called mechanical systems.
An automaton is a relatively self-operating machine, or control mechanism designed to automatically follow a sequence of operations, or respond to predetermined instructions. Some automata, such as bellstrikers in mechanical clocks, are designed to give the illusion to the casual observer that they are operating under their own power or will, like a mechanical robot. The term has long been commonly associated with automated puppets that resemble moving humans or animals, built to impress and/or to entertain people.
Johann Nepomuk Maelzel was a German inventor, engineer, and showman, best known for manufacturing a metronome and several music-playing automatons, and displaying a fraudulent chess machine. He worked with Beethoven to compose a piece of music for one of his inventions.
Emile Berliner originally Emil Berliner, was a German-American inventor. He is best known for inventing the lateral-cut flat disc record used with a gramophone. He founded the United States Gramophone Company in 1894; The Gramophone Company in London, England, in 1897; Deutsche Grammophon in Hanover, Germany, in 1898; and Berliner Gram-o-phone Company of Canada in Montreal in 1899. Berliner also invented what was probably the first radial aircraft engine (1908), a helicopter (1919), and acoustical tiles (1920s).
Badīʿ az-Zaman Abu l-ʿIzz ibn Ismāʿīl ibn ar-Razāz al-Jazarī was a Muslim polymath: a scholar, inventor, mechanical engineer, artisan, artist and mathematician from the Artuqid Dynasty of Jazira in Mesopotamia. He is best known for writing The Book of Knowledge of Ingenious Mechanical Devices in 1206, where he described 50 mechanical devices, along with instructions on how to construct them. He is credited with the invention of the elephant clock. He has been described as the "father of robotics" and modern day engineering.
Johann Philipp Reis was a self-taught German scientist and inventor. In 1861, he constructed the first make-and-break telephone, today called the Reis telephone.
Antonio Santi Giuseppe Meucci was an Italian inventor and an associate of Giuseppe Garibaldi, a major political figure in the history of Italy. Meucci is best known for developing a voice-communication apparatus that several sources credit as the first telephone.
The Mechanical Turk, also known as the Automaton Chess Player, or simply The Turk, was a fraudulent chess-playing machine constructed in 1770, which appeared to be able to play a strong game of chess against a human opponent. For 84 years, it was exhibited on tours by various owners as an automaton. The machine survived and continued giving occasional exhibitions until 1854, when a fire swept through the museum where it was kept, destroying the machine. Afterwards, articles were published by a son of the machine's owner revealing its secrets to the public: that it was an elaborate hoax, suspected by some, but never proven in public while it still existed.
The history of technology is the history of the invention of tools and techniques and is one of the categories of world history. Technology can refer to methods ranging from as simple as stone tools to the complex genetic engineering and information technology that has emerged since the 1980s. The term technology comes from the Greek word techne, meaning art and craft, and the word logos, meaning word and speech. It was first used to describe applied arts, but it is now used to describe advancements and changes which affect the environment around us.
Mechanical television or mechanical scan television is an obsolete television system that relies on a mechanical scanning device, such as a rotating disk with holes in it or a rotating mirror drum, to scan the scene and generate the video signal, and a similar mechanical device at the receiver to display the picture. This contrasts with vacuum tube electronic television technology, using electron beam scanning methods, for example in cathode ray tube (CRT) televisions. Subsequently, modern solid-state liquid-crystal displays (LCD) and LED displays are now used to create and display television pictures.
The invention of the telephone was the culmination of work done by more than one individual, and led to an array of lawsuits relating to the patent claims of several individuals and numerous companies.
Sound recording and reproduction is the electrical, mechanical, electronic, or digital inscription and re-creation of sound waves, such as spoken voice, singing, instrumental music, or sound effects. The two main classes of sound recording technology are analog recording and digital recording.
Innocenzo Vincenzo Bartolomeo Luigi Carlo Manzetti was an Italian inventor born in Aosta. Following his primary school studies he went to the Jesuit-run Saint Bénin Boarding School and then on to Turin where he was awarded a diploma in land surveying before returning to Aosta.
This history of the telephone chronicles the development of the electrical telephone, and includes a brief overview of its predecessors. The first telephone patent was granted to Alexander Graham Bell in 1869.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to machines:
Wolfgang von Kempelen's speaking machine is a manually operated speech synthesizer that began development in 1769, by Austro-Hungarian author and inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen. It was in this same year that he completed his far more infamous contribution to history: The Turk, a chess-playing automaton, later revealed to be a very far-reaching and elaborate hoax due to the chess-playing human-being occupying its innards. But while the Turk's construction was completed in six months, Kempelen's speaking machine occupied the next twenty years of his life. After two conceptual "dead ends" over the first five years of research, Kempelen's third direction ultimately led him to the design he felt comfortable deeming "final": a functional representational model of the human vocal tract.
Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville was a French printer, bookseller and inventor.
The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
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