It's Nice to Get Up in the Mornin' When You've Got a Talking Clock!

1920

There's an epidemic of talking clocks in the country. Chicago and Philadelphia are the first to be afflicted and it's said that the disease may spread.

Vincent Pinto of Philadelphia has what, to all appearances, is a staid old grandfather's clock, but at times it does things that would surprise, if not shock, all of the younger clocks.

During the early morning hours, it behaves as other clocks have from the time of the first grandfather's. But at 6 it changes. First it booms out the hours — Bong — bong — bong — bong — bong — bong — then it shouts, being heard thruout the house:

"Six o'clock and time to get up."

Mrs. Vincent and her daughter Rose obey and an hour later the clock shouts up the stairs to Pinto and his son: "Breakfast is ready. Hurry down."

Warns Men of Their Work.

"Off to work, now it's time," the clock warns the men of the family at 7:30 and at 9 a. m. it informs Mrs. Pinto, "It's time to go to your marketing."

And so it goes, all day long, that nobody in the house may forget any duties. At 11 o'clock at night the clock, imitating Pinto's voice in its deepest and sternest tones, says:

"Time to go home, young man, it's 11 o'clock; time to go home."

Miss Rose's "young man" gets his hat and goes.

Pinto and his son built the clock and installed the talking apparatus after eleven months' work. Pinto made his own records, and he can change the clock's conversation whenever he wishes. It is rumored he sometimes stops the talking apparatus on Sundays and other days when he is at home.

Here's the Chicago Edition.

But Oscar Lindholm of Chicago, a machinist, declares that the Philadelphia clock is an infringement on a patent that he obtained six months ago. Lindholm has patented an alarm clock that yells instead of ringing.

The invention can be adjusted to an ordinary phonograph and the record is made to wake you in the manner that best suits your tastes and nationality.

If you're an ex-service man you may be delighted to hear the old familiar strains of "You gotta get up, you gotta get up, you gotta get up in the morning."

Or if you happen to be Scotch you can have the song that Harry Lauder made famous — "Oh, it's nice to get up in the mor-r-rning, but it's better to lie a-bed!"

—The Saturday Blade, Chicago, Aug. 7, 1920, p. 5.

Music Ends 80-Day Sleep

1919

Talking Machine Rouses Woman After Human Voices Fail.

NORWICH, N. Y. — Neighbors, relatives and doctors for eighty days had tried to wake Mrs. Fred Tracey, 55, of Oxford, from her "sleeping sickness," but a talking machine succeeded where human voices had failed.

When, as a last resort, a record was played she became conscious long enough to inquire:

"What was that?"

Then she fell asleep again, but was roused several times after that. Her physician now states she will recover.

The Talking Phonograph

1878

Mr. Thomas A. Edison recently came into this office, says the Scientific American, placed a little machine on our desk, turned a crank, and the machine inquired as to our health, asked how we liked the phonograph, informed us that it was very well, and bid us a cordial good night. These remarks were not only perfectly audible to ourselves, but to a dozen or more persons gathered around, and they were produced by the aid of no other mechanism than the simple little contrivance mentioned.

No matter how familiar a person may be with modern machinery and its wonderful performance, or how clear in his mind the principle underlying this strange device may be, it is impossible to listen to the mechanical speech without his experiencing the idea that his senses are deceiving him. We have heard other talking machines. The Faber apparatus for example is a large affair as big as a parlor organ. It has a key board, rubber larynx and lips, and an immense amount of ingenious mechanism which combines to produce something like articulation in a single monotonous organ note. But here is a little affair of a few pieces of metal, set up roughly on an iron stand about a foot square, that talks in such a way, that, even in its present imperfect form many words are not clearly distinguishable, there can be no doubt but that the inflections are those of nothing else than the human voice.

We have already pointed out the startling possibility of the voices of the dead being reheard through this device, and there is no doubt but that its capabilities are fully equal to other results just as astonishing. When it becomes possible as it doubtless will, to magnify the sound, the voices of such singers as Parepa and Titiens will not die with them, but will remain as long as the metal in which they may be embodied will last. The witness in court will find his own testimony repeated by machine so that it will be reproduced in a way that will leave no question as to his devising capacity or sanity. It is really possible by ingenious optical contrivances to throw stereoscopic photographs of people on screens in full view of an audience. Add the talking phonograph to counterfeit their voices, and it would be difficult to carry the illusion of real presence much further.