Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer, Dec 4, 1974

John Eulenberg
4 HN recommenders · recommended in 4 months, 2013–2025
YouTube
229K views · 16 years ago · demo · historical

A 1974 recording of Donald Sherman ordering a pizza by talking to a computer that answers in synthetic speech. It is an early demonstration of a speech-based interface, uploaded by John Eulenberg.

HN people share it as a surprising piece of technology archaeology, an early example of synthetic voice and ordering food by computer a decade before email demos.

“a less modern (1974) implementation: ordering a pizza via synthetic voice”
Input devices & novel interfacesHCI pioneers & visionary demos
#speechsynthesis#voiceinterface#1974#earlycomputing#techarchaeology

7 comments from Hacker News

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@tmshapland2025 · in “Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer, Dec 4, 1974 [video]”
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@elvis702020 · in “Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer, Dec 4, 1974 (CDC 6500)”
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@adamnemecek2014 · in “Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer (1974) [video]”
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@bdz2013 · in “Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer, Dec 4, 1974”
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@0823498723498722024 · in “Hacker Purity Test (1989)”
a less modern (1974) implementation: ordering a pizza via synthetic voice ▶ this video
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@0823498723498722021 · in “How to send an 'e mail' (1984) [video]”
ordering pizza via computer, about a decade earlier: ▶ this video
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s
@scoot2017 · in “Reviving the 1973 Unix Programmer's Manual”
I was amazed to see speech synthesis (speak / vs) as a standard feature. A little googling lead me to this: "Donald Sherman orders a pizza using a talking computer, Dec 4, 1974"[1] I seem to have a personal difficulty imagining the level of sophistication that existed prior my own awareness a particular technology; in the same way that it might sometimes appear that before color photography, the world was black-and-white. I'm grateful to the technology archaeologist who set the record straight. [1] ▶ this video
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