Why "Daisy" in 2001: A Space Odyssey?

1. Jim Myers
   August 24th, 2008 at 8:53 am

   In a junk store in Knoxville, Tennessee in early 1970's a friend and I found a documentary 33 RPM record of Bell Lab's singing computer performing "Daisy Bell." We came to the same conclusion.

2. TeaFizz
   August 24th, 2008 at 9:14 am

   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daisy_Bell#Memorable_performances

3. Felipe Venancio
   August 24th, 2008 at 12:02 pm

   This is weird.
   In the end of the video you can hear in portuguese: "Nós estaremos em contato instantâneo com o mundo. Mas o que lhe diremos?" (We will be in instant contact with the world. But what will we say?).

4. Tim Giachetti
   August 24th, 2008 at 12:20 pm

   heheheh, Daisy the kitty woke right up for this, I've been singing it to her for years. She ran right over for hugs.

5. Johnny Cat
   August 24th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

   The Bell Labs version has similar inflections as an Amish person, which makes this double-neat for me! Also, kick-ass Hamlet reading, there.

6. laamish
   August 24th, 2008 at 1:49 pm

   I remember hearing this exact rendition in the mid 60s at a science museum in Ohio. It was right next to the working traffic light mock-up.
   Cheap thrills for a ten year old.

7. Mike Snider
   August 24th, 2008 at 3:53 pm

   I heard the same recording around 1965-6, when my father was doing his doctoral research on computer voice recognition at Case Institute (now Case/Western) in Cleveland. At the time, the 'Daisy-voice' was astounding quality for a computer; my Dad's "advanced" setup could only generate and recognize the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4 -- so maybe it could sing that Feist song from a couple years ago...

8. Larry Anderson
   August 24th, 2008 at 11:28 pm

   The voice synthesis part seems to be in its entirety on the record Album "First Philadelphia Computer Music Festival" published by Creative Computing in 1979. It also includes a really nice computer generated Toccata. Hey it's on-line here:

   http://www.vintagecomputermusic.com/

   The last track is the one.

   make sure to check out:
   J.S. Bach/Toccata & Fugue in d Minor
   J.S. Bach/Suite for Orchestra #2 in b minor (excerpt)
   and
   Johann Wanhal/Rondo from Sonata in B flat for Clarinet and Piano

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