The Stephen Hawking doll
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Archived from the IMDb Discussion Forums — The Big Bang Theory
SheldonCooper_Bazinga — 9 years ago(November 17, 2016 10:37 PM)
How did Howard get his Stephen Hawking doll to talk with Stephen's "voice"? I assume he didn't ask Hawking to record those lines specifically for the doll. I know there are "text-to-speech" apps you can get that approximate the sound of the technology Hawking uses, but they don't sound exactly like him.
Yeah I know, "It's just a show, suspend your disbelief" and all that. -
kerryedavis — 9 years ago(November 17, 2016 11:02 PM)
Howard does a Hawking impersonating, starting even in the very first episode. Maybe he did it himself, with enough retries until it sounded good enough. And with that electronic reproduction it didn't really have to be exact anyway.
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bob-402-252005 — 9 years ago(November 18, 2016 05:02 AM)
Dr. Hawking's is an early computer-generated voice. Newer ones can be argued to be "better" in various ways, but since the one he's using is now iconically associated with him, probably a better idea to stick with it.
Howard is an engineer. He might have had an old copy of it lying around and just had to port it to his own usage.
http://www.bobpeters61.com/linkables/CaligulusTrumpus.gif -
profundity — 9 years ago(November 18, 2016 05:01 AM)
The "voice" of Stephen Hawking is actually antiquated technology. Because he is so iconic many members of the technological world have kept it up to date with current verbiage and syntax.
The man himself has spoken of it through said "voice" several times through the years that he is so comfortable with it that while newer tech would give him a less robotic "voice" that is what he is known for and has no plans to change it in his lifetime. -
PR-7 — 9 years ago(November 18, 2016 09:30 AM)
The sound of Hawkings' "voice" is a DEC Talk, a text to speech generator that has been around for over thirty years. Digital Equipment Corporation originally developed this device for automated phone responses ("Press one for accounting, press two for sales,.."). Because of the high quality of the speech synthesis, it became popular with blind users of computers, including a few that I helped train to use computers WAY long ago. For a sample of this speech, check out
http://www.speechfxinc.com/dectalk.html
Note that the DEC Talk can be set to "speak" as Perfect Paul, Beautiful Betty, Huge Harry, Frail Frank, Rough Rita, Kit the Kid, and others.
I recognized Dr Hawkings as using "Paul" as soon as I heard his synthesized speech, many years ago.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECtalk#In_technology_and_culture
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Mr Smith: Like the rose trampled on the ground, you took the fall
