@@CoreDreamStudios there was once a lady that had 69 babies, that was 222 many babies so she went to 51st street to see doctor x who gave her 8 pills and she came out 55378008 (6922251x8=55378008)
Talking watches still exist, for the blind. Technology evolved in a way that they now have enough memory to have enough phrases pre-recorded, instead of voice-synthesizing.
Yep. My dad is fully blind and he had that RadioShack box when it was new. Fascinating how things have evolved from that to now we use VoiceOver for Apple Watch
When he made the watch say “F$&k it”, I giggled like I was twelve again, and then looked around to make sure my mom didn’t hear it... from three states away.😆
Pro tip: if you live an apartment, you can use anything loud enough as a talking clock, at least in the middle of the night. If you make enough noise, you'll inevitably hear a voice telling you the time before long.
It is literally an old anecdote: One guy showing his apartment to another and guest notices large copper bowl on a wall. He asks: - What is that? - It's a talking clock. Let me show. He bangs bowl loudly and somebody screams from behind the wall: - IT IS 2 FUCKING AM
Do it often enough, and you might even get a very helpful letter informing you of how much time you have left before you have to move out. Really useful for figuring out when you have to start house-hunting again. Convenience all around!
Repent to Jesus Christ “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” John 1:29 NIV
I once woeked with a blind web developper, and he was probably better at the job than many i met over the years. It was always wzird walking into the open space and seeing him typing in front of black screens and later that day get to review his code on our gitlab... Just wow ! :)
@@benjamineldridge769 What. Aside from the fact that that relieves one of my greatest fears (losing my eyesight to some accident and then being unable to actually do anything, in particular programming).... HOW. How on earth do you do programming if you're blind??
The talking watches from radio shack always seem to last longer than the specialty ones though. Although, the talking watches from radio shack looked kind of funny but still, the band always seem to wear out before the watch did.
I love the design of that pyramid clock. I can imagine it on the desk of a business man in one of those late 80's business buildings that have a metallic look, like the one in Gremlins 2 or the one in Who's Harry Crumb.
In the early 90s when watches were cheap, we'd all sync them to the second with the electronic school bell system, then turn on the hour chime, so we'd all sound off at once, and we thought that was cute. But then, one of us got the idea of getting every kid to offset by exactly one second and turn on the hour chime, resulting in a different watch beeping for about 20 seconds. Oh boy did that upset the teachers. The principal prohibited the hour chime school-wide really quick. (The ADHD kids like me were still allowed to use the alarm to remember to go to the nurse to get their meds, heh.)
Lol we did that too back in the 80's. We even had the rich kid who had the channel changer watch & could turn the TV off/on during a movie multiple times lol. That watch was pretty damn crazy for it's time.
In my primary school I remember various densities of hourly beeps happening spread across about 5 minutes, a couple before and a couple after the actual hour.
The pyramid clock looks like it would fit in perfectly on the desk of some evil mastermind or super villain at the top of the tallest and most menacing skyscraper in the city
I used to work at Radio Shack back in the 80s and they had a lot of cool shit. This was when they had those cell phones with the giant battery case that you had to carry like a suitcase. Ah...Good times.
I have an original Radio Shack “Illuma-Storm” plasma globe, still works flawlessly, as well as a newer “Lightning Storm” both solid state Tesla coils. ua-cam.com/video/GtdBnCspdcs/v-deo.html
In the 80s my friends and I would set our watches one second apart and sit next to each other. When the hourly beep would happen it sounded like the beep was moving along the row. 😁
Hey it's mr Brian. I remember when we did that. I always fucked up the time and my beep would disrupt the chain and you guys would always beat me up for that. Good times.
I had the Seiko pyramid one! It was a gift from my step-grandmother (who specialized in awful gifts). It took so long that I had to resist just picking it up to see the time.
I watch these when I go to sleep simply for the fact it’s so interesting that my brain can keep listening and because his style of recording is so comfy
I had a talking watch in the 80s that was branded "Omni," but clearly had the same guts as the Radio Shack one. The alarm started with same chime, and its voice was the same, but instead of the Bach Minuet it played the *Boccherini* Minuet, which was liltingly charming. It was a lot more fragile that that RS one appeared, so it lived in its included desktop stand instead of on my wrist.
You don't see that much in consumer products these days. Companies unfortunately learned that most people like cheap products so there was a "race to the bottom" in terms of pricing. To get there companies cut corners and reliability and longevity suffered. This also means that when the product that you bought finally breaks after a few months or years you gotta go back to the store and buy another one. Meanwhile the people who owned the company that made your crappy product are laughing their way all the way to the bank to cash the check you wrote them. An unfortunate aspect of modern capitalism.
Nearer 20 years and it's not really engineering it's just very simple without much to go wrong apart from electrolytics drying out and that can happen however well you engineer something. Modern equipment is often more highly stressed running at higher current /temperature levels.
What a blast from the past! My mom had the "Micronta" alarm clock from the Radio Shack ad for many, many years. The voice was identical to the TI-driven alarm clock you demoed first. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
My great Aunt collected clocks, she had one of those pyramid clocks and use to chuckle at the Japanese accent. I don't remember it sounding as bad as it does in the video, but it has been many years since I've heard it. It may still be in the family somewhere. I also remember that weather radio from Radio Shack, I think that must have been very popular.
I'm only in my 30s, but man this brings back memories. I still have Dad's Micronta digital alarm clock that looks awfully similar to the Spartan clock without the console extending below it. Had it since I started school in 1992. Dad had that Realistic Weather Radio since as far back as I can remember, and I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out how it worked as a kid.
I truly miss radio shack. It was always fun to go in and see some of the stuff they had, that as you said, you literally couldnt get anywhere else. My dad gave me his 'portable' (cuz it had a handle to carry it. Not cuz it was easy to lug around. it prolly weighed 40 pounds) reel to reel player. I used it to record all kinda of stuff. But the only place you could get blank reels, even in the early 80s, was Radio Shack. I must have bought 50 of them over the 4-5 years I had that thing.
A good part of the world died when Radio Shack declined and left us. Teenage me would never have believed the high tech future would be a future without a place to browse and buy random DIY tech stuff.
Some like the pyramid are more like the stuff from mall stores like Sharper Image or Brookstone, where they'd have all the weird office toys and niche electronics.
Whenever I'm looking for my nostagic trip down PC memory lane (haha so punny) it brings me right here everytime. Something about the synth intro, the throwback information and general 8-Bit Guy style I really enjoy watching as well as some unexpected laughs. Thank you 8-Bit, always looking forward to the next bit of PC history you bring us!
Love looking at these older clocks to see how the technology evolved. I still use an Alarm Clock (non-talking) that was manufactured in the late 80’s, and it works great! They definitely made things better in those days. Also, the tune playing on the Watch Alarm is a version of Bach’s Minuet in G. Cool! Enjoyed the video!
I love how the little Vox Watch says "attention please" with it's alarm. So cute! I like talking clocks, they're practical. I was sick recently and moving my head constantly to see my clock was making me dizzy, but my phone has the google assistant so I could just ask and get the time. Unfortunately the Google assistant is a poorly designed mess of an interface so it's less useful then some of these clocks were haha, even if you had to press the button for the clocks.
Seems like the same voice capabilities that the Sharp ELSI-Quarts CT-660 talking alarm clock had - that "attention please," the voice, the alarm tone, so nostalgic to me as my Dad's stepdad had a CT-660 (which I inherited after he died, but ... can't seem to find)
2 роки тому+2
The thing I use Siri most often for is to ask the time when I don't want to get out of bed.
I had a the star wars talking clock as a kid. My parents regretted getting it for me because I would purposely let the alarm go and go to listen to C3P0 lol
It’s been a long while since I’ve watched your videos, so I’m on a catching up binge watch while I’m coming down from a horribly crippling migraine. Your videos are so soothing. They’re gentle enough that they don’t hurt my ears and eyes when I have a migraine, and your voice is always level tone & gentle. I’m not the best at understanding most of what you talk about but I thoroughly enjoy it regardless. Thank you for making your content the way you do.
I have chronic migraines too and you're right his voice is soothing and it doesn't hurt in my head as much. I'm sorry you're dealing with migraines as well, but I'm in the same club as you so I know what you're going through it sucks.
10:50 My dad had one of those weather radio cubes. I wish I still had it, was a good little radio. 👍 I see going back in the RS catalogs that it came out in 1970 and with him passing away a few years later, he had to get it pretty much when it came out, in either 1970 or 71. I was just a toddler back then and would listen to it for hours my mother said. It worked up right until I broke it by dropping it and landed on a corner and broke into many pieces that time. 😢
9:59 Man, that was wild- literally just as I was typing out a comment describing the little talking clock my grandma had, that I loved playing with as a kid, you whipped out the exact one she had. I used to carry it around her house and just press the button over and over again until my parents wanted to take it from me, but my grandma wouldn’t let them. I haven’t seen it in years, although I’m pretty sure my parents probably still have it somewhere. But, damn, that brought back memories.
My grandma had things like this all over the house. She was blind , and in the eighties we shopped at radio shack for all this stuff, the clock The Watch, it was really cool when she got to watch
I really love 8 Bit Guy videos. What makes them special? It's that highly personal narrative. He weaves informative factual data with personal anecdotes. Perfect! Keep up the brilliant work! Marius (from Warsaw, Poland)
The watch brought back so many memories. So much so I remembered the tune as you played it on the alarm and it reminded me of how many times it used to go off in class at school as I used to let it play at my teachers annoyance lol
I own and use as my morning alarm a Panasonic RC-6900 from 1975. It was the first clock that could actually tell you what time it is from a pre-recorded voice. (I guess somebody got into a recording booth and recorded every single minute and hour onto tape?) It wakes me up every morning by saying “Seven O’Clock!” And it will keep repeating the time every ten seconds until I turn it off. It uses a magnetic disc for the voice kind of like a cassette. I call it Rhoda because the voice sounds like Rhoda Morgenstern from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.
I'm reminded of my mother's Radio Shack Alarm Clock. The alarm sound was a rooster crowing. It was solid black with a LCD display, a few aqua colored switches and a large aqua button for having it speak the time. When setting the time I had to listen to constant loud ding noises followed by the voice telling me the time. I still have it somewhere in my house.
This video reminded me of a wristwatch my late great grandma gave to me that audibly told you the time when you pressed a button on it. I was so fascinated/amused by it that she got me one of my own. I don't remember the brand, but it was big, silver and it made a ding or gong sound before telling the time in a robotic voice. It's been 11 years since her passing, thank you for bringing back that memory.
Thanks for this, David! A real trip down memory lane for this geek that grew up in the 70's / 80's. That weather radio you showed - those were really cool back in the day. You should do a research video on weather radios from back then. Some of them got pretty sophisticated near the end. The tones broadcast on the NOAA radio frequencies would make them do things like automatically start broadcasting watch announcements or sound alarms when warnings were issued. Pretty cool old-school technology.
My grandma gave me a pyramid shaped one (different than the one in this video) that had a really creepy bitcrushed rooster sound for the alarm. I hated that alarm so much, especially when the batteries were getting old and the pitch would change
Was it white with an orange-ish colored button? I think we had one like that for my dad, more of a rectangular base than a square, still a pyramid shape.
Your channel is so great. It's like nostalgia overload for me. In my teens, I can remember pouring through the Radio Shack catalog for hours and just dreaming! Then in my later teens when my "cooler" friends were figuring out how to score booze, my friends and I were in the electronics section at Radio Shack figuring out what to build next.
Very jealous of that Spartus wood grain Alarm clock. I love the old Texas Instrument TMS5100 speech synthesizers chips that don't seem to be in production anymore. Those by far had the perfect balance of articulation and timbre. Hopefully one day I'll be able to snag a functional piece that can sit on my desk with one of those chips in it. Sort of like an Alarm clock! Great video as usual
I love the nostagia you give me for Radio Shack. My dad worked there from 84 to 91 I believe, and I got to see a fair bit of their computer tech growing up.
14:18 Ironically, I just watched a video where they also mentioned that slang "sick" was relatively new, but apparently they found footage of skateboarders using the term, I believe in the 80s. Either way, it wasn't a widespread term until later. If anyone is interested I'll post a link the video.
I remember using it back in the late '80s, along with a lot of other kids, in place of "cool" or "awesome" to the confusion of a lot of adults. Mind you, I grew-up in California, so there were a lot of suffer and skater terms floating around, including the "shaka" hand sign, the "Cool S" graffiti sign, and elaborate hand-slaps that ends with pinched fingers sliding apart to go to the lips smoking an imaginary joint. It was all quite tubular, my dude.
As primitive as the first one looks now I’m still impressed it was made nearly 60 years ago. Just consider what technology existed 60 years before that…
Speaking of NOAA weather stations, my car is a 2000 Saab, it has 3 radio settings; AM, FM, and WB. The weather band actually works, and since I live in Florida it can be handy. My car is my only weatherband radio though lol...
Love your videos man. Thank you. You have increased my interesting in this generation of tech a ton! Also allows me to under tech to a much deeper level.
Being blind since birth and born in 1978, I have lots of experience with different talking clocks. The Spartus is one I first saw in 1986. It has basically the same speech chip and functions as the Radio Shack VoxClock III which I got for Christmas in 1985. The Radio Shack VoxWatch is something I first saw in December of 1985, and its chip is based on that of the Sharp Talking Time I from the early 80's. The Talking Time I has a different alarm tune (Boccherini Minuet in A) and a few different features. Not that it'd be worth much, but with the distinctive chips the Spartus has, I wonder if it could be emulated in MAME or similar?
I am so glad you made this video, I’ve been especially curious about that Voxwatch ever since I found a little demo of it a few months ago. The Spartu Clock was I’m pretty sure rebranded by RadioShack as the Vox clock three. There was a vox clock to which I do have, it’s the same cube shape except it doesn’t have a screen and it has the same voice as the watch but a different alarm melody. Sharp also made a few talking clocks with the same voice and they also made a talking calculator clock. I love old talking electronics from the 80s, probably one of my favorite videos on your channel is that video of the worlds first digital answering system.
I had the talking watch and pyramid one. In the mid 80's, my parents had the best one though, a talking alarm clock that would cuss at you when using snooze.
You can imagine that any modern talking watch would be rigorously tested and any such 'fun' words immediately locked out and expunged in case someone had a laugh. Naughty, naughty! 😄
I love my realistic brand gear, they take me back to some happy times when i got to go to Tandy shop in Australia and see some grand things on the shelves. When i can i try and find the stuff i saw on the shelf and add it to my collection, hopefully still working.
13:45 Must have been a fairly popular tune in the 80s ...does anyone remember the musical duel in "Electric Dreams" (1984)? The piece is "Minuet in G Major" by Christian Petzold (frequently erroneously attributed to J.S. Bach) Also 5PM had me rolling!!
yes.. originally by Bach!... composed for Electric Dreams by the synth master Giorgio Moroder (yes the same "my name is Giovanni Giorgio, but everyone calls me Giorgio!")
Good spotting of that watch tune. I was looking to see if anyone noted it was a Minuet, as I was made to play that tune on a piano when I was taking lessons as a kid. 😁😁😁
I always thought that was a long-lasting hold over from WWII. There's a LOT of copper in a proper UK plug, and it would have saved a lot to manufacture devices with the plugs to be fitted by the end user. Or perhaps it was an artifact from plugs not being standardized until much later than electrical goods becoming popular.
@@evensgrey Yah, I figure it was a holdover from then too -- especially since the UK changed plug and outlet designs right after WW2. People didn't change all their outlets right away, so it made sense to sell things without plugs, and wire up the kind of plug you needed. Meanwhile, here in the US, the 2-prong version of our plugs and outlets was already a long-established standard. EDIT: And the 3-prong version had already been invented in the 1920s.
@@AaronOfMpls My current apartment was (or so I'm told) built in the 1930's, doing a rather bad imitation of a rich family home from about 1880. Two of the rooms in my apartment have what might be original electrical outlets, on the floorboard on the OUTSIDE walls, two prong, no polarization. (I've got modern outlets on the common interior wall of the two rooms. 15 Amps is plenty of power for everything I have in here, fortunately.)
@@AaronOfMpls my house still has a few round pin bakalite sockets. They are part of a disconnected ring main that no one bothered to remove when the house was renovated and rewired. House is about 60 years old and in the uk.
This was good! I enjoyed learning about this, I don't know much about talking clocks at all so this was quite educational for me. Not much else to say other than good job!
I love voice synthesis and all things retro. My dad would watch you (and still does) when I was a wee lass. Interesting how I tend to watch now what he watched then :) love your content
Radio Shack was the bomb back in the day, I have many childhood memories of hearing the time announced at a few friends houses. you should totally do one on NOAA radio's that would be fun.
My friends Dad had several of these, one at the house and one or two at the farm they had 5 miles outside of town. It was the Midwest, so these would go off with a siren alarm sound when there was a storm warning or tornado warning and then automatically key on the speaker so you could hear the announcement.
I have a regular Spartus alarm clock from the 80s and I still use it. Same basic design with the wood look and just a smaller control panel in the front.
I also bought a regular Spartus alarm clock back in the ‘80s, which also had the same basic design. It was really inexpensive but worked for over 20 years.
I know this is a completely different technology, but I had a pokemon pocketwatch that talked, and it was amazing. There's nothing better that being able to lay in bed with your eyes closed, and push 1 button in your hand and hear "SEVEN, FIFTY, FIVE!" (in Ash's voice lol) but just the convenience, it was great
It’s interesting that you mentioned that RadioShack made both a weather radio and talking clock, because they did eventually make a weather radio that also has a talking clock in it
The speaking watch brings me way back in the 90's when I got a calculator watch for my birthday. It was like Future Tech to me and my friends... I ended up getting in trouble once for using it during a math quiz in school and was told I couldn't wear it to school anymore. Ahh the good old days.
35 years later David still enjoys his watch saying "f*ck it". Some things never get old.
This is how we stay young, laughing at the things that are timelessly funny.
This is the best thing a watch can say
@@AveryHappens calculators could do stuff too if you did 800813 and turned it upside down lol.
@@CoreDreamStudios there was once a lady that had 69 babies, that was 222 many babies so she went to 51st street to see doctor x who gave her 8 pills and she came out 55378008 (6922251x8=55378008)
@@CoreDreamStudios EIBOOB? Maybe rethink the order xD
Talking watches still exist, for the blind. Technology evolved in a way that they now have enough memory to have enough phrases pre-recorded, instead of voice-synthesizing.
But do they say f*** it too? Lol
@@fuijika Bet they could lol
Yep. My dad is fully blind and he had that RadioShack box when it was new. Fascinating how things have evolved from that to now we use VoiceOver for Apple Watch
and what a shame that is, voice synth cooler
@@fawkesrocks I have a Braille Note that had speech synthesis and a friend had me Braille naughty words to see how it said them.
When he made the watch say “F$&k it”, I giggled like I was twelve again, and then looked around to make sure my mom didn’t hear it... from three states away.😆
@Dale The Elad you have to cool
Pro tip: if you live an apartment, you can use anything loud enough as a talking clock, at least in the middle of the night. If you make enough noise, you'll inevitably hear a voice telling you the time before long.
LMAO! 🤣
Even that spirit that walks around in my small kitchen?? 😂😂
It is literally an old anecdote:
One guy showing his apartment to another and guest notices large copper bowl on a wall. He asks:
- What is that?
- It's a talking clock. Let me show.
He bangs bowl loudly and somebody screams from behind the wall:
- IT IS 2 FUCKING AM
@@leuri397 Yup, that's what I was referencing!
Do it often enough, and you might even get a very helpful letter informing you of how much time you have left before you have to move out. Really useful for figuring out when you have to start house-hunting again. Convenience all around!
Dude made a watch swear, absolute legend
I came to the comments the second I heard that knowing people would say this
Yooo I'm the 200th like! Fuck yea
Bart Simpson was totally giving both thumbs up about this!
14:11
Repent to Jesus Christ
“The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”
John 1:29 NIV
Being totally blind, I have owned several of these products over the years. Thanks for the trip down memory lane. It was fun. :-)
I once woeked with a blind web developper, and he was probably better at the job than many i met over the years. It was always wzird walking into the open space and seeing him typing in front of black screens and later that day get to review his code on our gitlab... Just wow ! :)
That’s cool. That’s what I do for a living myself. Software and web development.
@@benjamineldridge769 What. Aside from the fact that that relieves one of my greatest fears (losing my eyesight to some accident and then being unable to actually do anything, in particular programming).... HOW. How on earth do you do programming if you're blind??
The talking watches from radio shack always seem to last longer than the specialty ones though. Although, the talking watches from radio shack looked kind of funny but still, the band always seem to wear out before the watch did.
@@benjamineldridge769 uh what the fuck, THAT'S seriously impressive, do tell us more
I love the design of that pyramid clock. I can imagine it on the desk of a business man in one of those late 80's business buildings that have a metallic look, like the one in Gremlins 2 or the one in Who's Harry Crumb.
Or on tables in Ten Forward in the 24th century?
In the early 90s when watches were cheap, we'd all sync them to the second with the electronic school bell system, then turn on the hour chime, so we'd all sound off at once, and we thought that was cute. But then, one of us got the idea of getting every kid to offset by exactly one second and turn on the hour chime, resulting in a different watch beeping for about 20 seconds. Oh boy did that upset the teachers. The principal prohibited the hour chime school-wide really quick. (The ADHD kids like me were still allowed to use the alarm to remember to go to the nurse to get their meds, heh.)
Lol we did that too back in the 80's.
We even had the rich kid who had the channel changer watch & could turn the TV off/on during a movie multiple times lol.
That watch was pretty damn crazy for it's time.
We use to slam our tops of our desks in sync. 😆
In my primary school I remember various densities of hourly beeps happening spread across about 5 minutes, a couple before and a couple after the actual hour.
90s? Hell, even in the early 80s digital watches were dirt cheap.
@@tarstarkusz This is true, but, in 1989, I was only in the 2nd grade.
The pyramid clock looks like it would fit in perfectly on the desk of some evil mastermind or super villain at the top of the tallest and most menacing skyscraper in the city
To me it screams Robocop. Like you can just picture it being on the desk of Dick Jones the president of Omni Consumer Products.
@@-DeScruff Yeah, would’ve been good set dressing.
I smell Bill Cypher
ozymandias would def have one
it also has exotic accent apparently, which i couldn't pick out the accent. needed more examples. smh.
This must be LGR's favourite episode with all the wood grain.
you know it is
I know, right?
LGR is driving to his nearest thrift store to go find a VoxClock
CLINT
@RockManLP_Radio ugh you too
I used to work at Radio Shack back in the 80s and they had a lot of cool shit. This was when they had those cell phones with the giant battery case that you had to carry like a suitcase. Ah...Good times.
RadioShack was amazing. They literally made some of the best stuff for the price, and it’s all built to last. Some of it is near indestructible
I have an original Radio Shack “Illuma-Storm” plasma globe, still works flawlessly, as well as a newer “Lightning Storm” both solid state Tesla coils.
ua-cam.com/video/GtdBnCspdcs/v-deo.html
I miss that place. It was so easy getting components there and that Electronics Learning Lab kit is a classic.
In the 80s my friends and I would set our watches one second apart and sit next to each other. When the hourly beep would happen it sounded like the beep was moving along the row. 😁
back too futré dyd that furßt time travel exiebt
Hey it's mr Brian. I remember when we did that. I always fucked up the time and my beep would disrupt the chain and you guys would always beat me up for that. Good times.
I had the Seiko pyramid one! It was a gift from my step-grandmother (who specialized in awful gifts). It took so long that I had to resist just picking it up to see the time.
I watch these when I go to sleep simply for the fact it’s so interesting that my brain can keep listening and because his style of recording is so comfy
i agree, but just wait til you wake up to him making the alarm clock say “f you” XD
@14:40 *Watch gets wet from the pool*
*FUCK IT FUCK IT FUCK IT*!
It was fun hearing the discoveries of 11 year old 8-bit guy
Tujh se kisi ne poocha
true lol it's so funny
@@BilalKhan_-bj4bu Kub gabu lumor 😂😂
And all that hair that he had!
It's fu... It's fu... It's fu... :o)
was REALLY racking my brain for a second about why the Mattel clock needed spark plugs...
I had a talking watch in the 80s that was branded "Omni," but clearly had the same guts as the Radio Shack one. The alarm started with same chime, and its voice was the same, but instead of the Bach Minuet it played the *Boccherini* Minuet, which was liltingly charming. It was a lot more fragile that that RS one appeared, so it lived in its included desktop stand instead of on my wrist.
Or, rather, a minuet tune arranged into 4 time and altered a bit.
Menuet was not created by Johann Sebastian Bach, It was made by Bach Petzold
it's always fun to hear early voice synthesis
That Spartus clock was an absolute work of art, a fantastic blend of rather tacky aesthetic design and built like a tank functional design.
And the loveliest alarm sound.
You don't see that much in consumer products these days. Companies unfortunately learned that most people like cheap products so there was a "race to the bottom" in terms of pricing. To get there companies cut corners and reliability and longevity suffered. This also means that when the product that you bought finally breaks after a few months or years you gotta go back to the store and buy another one. Meanwhile the people who owned the company that made your crappy product are laughing their way all the way to the bank to cash the check you wrote them.
An unfortunate aspect of modern capitalism.
The capacitors looked like theyd started to leak. Will die soon if he doesnt replace them.
@@edgarwalk5637 I know is sound amazing! I would like to either find one or at least get an mp3 recording and use it as an alarm on my phone
@@twistedyogert There's a bit of survivor bias in there too, as there's poorly-made cheap crap in _every_ era.
The fact that a 40-year-old clock still works after being left in packaging for all that time speaks to the engineering that went into it.
Amazing!
Planned obsolescence was not in full effect yet when it was made.
@@TheBullDurham actually it was, it started 1924..
And the robust simplicity of the design. It does one, basically useless process, not very well.
Nearer 20 years and it's not really engineering it's just very simple without much to go wrong apart from electrolytics drying out and that can happen however well you engineer something. Modern equipment is often more highly stressed running at higher current /temperature levels.
@@achannelhasnoname5182 The light bulb cartel .
What a blast from the past! My mom had the "Micronta" alarm clock from the Radio Shack ad for many, many years. The voice was identical to the TI-driven alarm clock you demoed first. Thanks for the trip down memory lane.
You can just hear the pain in David's voice when he talks about the yellowed plastic cover on that first digital clock. Retrobrite video coming?
I wonder if retrobrite would work on this type of plastic as well
Don't think he'll bother.
@@great__success I tried and it doesn't.
@@ralphrestubog5519 Wait, YOU ACTUALLY TRIED?! LMAO
Batteries not included
In the present it’s an inconvenience but in the future it’s a blessing
I look forward to the retro brighting followup to get that packaging back to normal! :)
YES!!!
YEEEEEEESSSS!!!!
😂😂😂
My great Aunt collected clocks, she had one of those pyramid clocks and use to chuckle at the Japanese accent. I don't remember it sounding as bad as it does in the video, but it has been many years since I've heard it. It may still be in the family somewhere. I also remember that weather radio from Radio Shack, I think that must have been very popular.
How do you know your aunt was a 'she'? Are you a biologist?
I'm only in my 30s, but man this brings back memories. I still have Dad's Micronta digital alarm clock that looks awfully similar to the Spartan clock without the console extending below it. Had it since I started school in 1992. Dad had that Realistic Weather Radio since as far back as I can remember, and I remember spending a lot of time trying to figure out how it worked as a kid.
I truly miss radio shack. It was always fun to go in and see some of the stuff they had, that as you said, you literally couldnt get anywhere else. My dad gave me his 'portable' (cuz it had a handle to carry it. Not cuz it was easy to lug around. it prolly weighed 40 pounds) reel to reel player. I used it to record all kinda of stuff. But the only place you could get blank reels, even in the early 80s, was Radio Shack. I must have bought 50 of them over the 4-5 years I had that thing.
A good part of the world died when Radio Shack declined and left us. Teenage me would never have believed the high tech future would be a future without a place to browse and buy random DIY tech stuff.
Some like the pyramid are more like the stuff from mall stores like Sharper Image or Brookstone, where they'd have all the weird office toys and niche electronics.
New Zealand and Australia are lucky enough to have Jaycar electronics stores, basically our equivalent to RadioShack still going strong
You making that poor watch say dirty words caught me off balance. I was in tears 🤣👍
I thought I heard the watch say sex on the 6 o'clock hour! 😂😂🤣🤣
@@BigjohnZ06 Its sex o clock 😆
My dad was blind, so we had quite a few of these in our house. Very cool. I remember that Vox Watch so well. We were a Radio Shack family!
Whenever I'm looking for my nostagic trip down PC memory lane (haha so punny) it brings me right here everytime. Something about the synth intro, the throwback information and general 8-Bit Guy style I really enjoy watching as well as some unexpected laughs. Thank you 8-Bit, always looking forward to the next bit of PC history you bring us!
Love looking at these older clocks to see how the technology evolved. I still use an Alarm Clock (non-talking) that was manufactured in the late 80’s, and it works great! They definitely made things better in those days. Also, the tune playing on the Watch Alarm is a version of Bach’s Minuet in G. Cool! Enjoyed the video!
I quit using alarm clocks when I got a smartphone.
@@bradleyj.fortner2203 I use both. Lol. Just to be sure!
still using my old 80's spartus alarm clock also!
@@a4000t my family member has a old school alarm clock I think its from the 70s 🕺
I'm still using my radio alarm clock from the late '80s as well.
I love how the little Vox Watch says "attention please" with it's alarm. So cute!
I like talking clocks, they're practical. I was sick recently and moving my head constantly to see my clock was making me dizzy, but my phone has the google assistant so I could just ask and get the time. Unfortunately the Google assistant is a poorly designed mess of an interface so it's less useful then some of these clocks were haha, even if you had to press the button for the clocks.
Seems like the same voice capabilities that the Sharp ELSI-Quarts CT-660 talking alarm clock had - that "attention please," the voice, the alarm tone, so nostalgic to me as my Dad's stepdad had a CT-660 (which I inherited after he died, but ... can't seem to find)
The thing I use Siri most often for is to ask the time when I don't want to get out of bed.
I had a the star wars talking clock as a kid. My parents regretted getting it for me because I would purposely let the alarm go and go to listen to C3P0 lol
It’s been a long while since I’ve watched your videos, so I’m on a catching up binge watch while I’m coming down from a horribly crippling migraine.
Your videos are so soothing. They’re gentle enough that they don’t hurt my ears and eyes when I have a migraine, and your voice is always level tone & gentle.
I’m not the best at understanding most of what you talk about but I thoroughly enjoy it regardless.
Thank you for making your content the way you do.
I have chronic migraines too and you're right his voice is soothing and it doesn't hurt in my head as much. I'm sorry you're dealing with migraines as well, but I'm in the same club as you so I know what you're going through it sucks.
10:50 My dad had one of those weather radio cubes. I wish I still had it, was a good little radio. 👍 I see going back in the RS catalogs that it came out in 1970 and with him passing away a few years later, he had to get it pretty much when it came out, in either 1970 or 71. I was just a toddler back then and would listen to it for hours my mother said. It worked up right until I broke it by dropping it and landed on a corner and broke into many pieces that time. 😢
My dad had that weather radio, too.
9:59 Man, that was wild- literally just as I was typing out a comment describing the little talking clock my grandma had, that I loved playing with as a kid, you whipped out the exact one she had. I used to carry it around her house and just press the button over and over again until my parents wanted to take it from me, but my grandma wouldn’t let them. I haven’t seen it in years, although I’m pretty sure my parents probably still have it somewhere. But, damn, that brought back memories.
Love every time you put out an episode. Thank you man.
I'm perplexed and amazed by that "F*ck it", I never thought I would laugh so much with this simple 80's joke, thank you, David 😂❤
The clock is kinda begging for you to stop doing that weird pressing of its button 😂😂😂
My grandma had things like this all over the house. She was blind , and in the eighties we shopped at radio shack for all this stuff, the clock The Watch, it was really cool when she got to watch
Your videos are always so cool and informative. I love them!
I really love 8 Bit Guy videos. What makes them special? It's that highly personal narrative. He weaves informative factual data with personal anecdotes. Perfect! Keep up the brilliant work! Marius (from Warsaw, Poland)
It’s strange how many things were thought to be the future but never caught on
master chef too I come 26 certy fhte
Love the techmoan reference when removing the screen cover!
The watch brought back so many memories. So much so I remembered the tune as you played it on the alarm and it reminded me of how many times it used to go off in class at school as I used to let it play at my teachers annoyance lol
So nice, I love your content man!
14:45 11 year olds? I'm 43 and just LOL'd
I own and use as my morning alarm a Panasonic RC-6900 from 1975. It was the first clock that could actually tell you what time it is from a pre-recorded voice. (I guess somebody got into a recording booth and recorded every single minute and hour onto tape?) It wakes me up every morning by saying “Seven O’Clock!” And it will keep repeating the time every ten seconds until I turn it off. It uses a magnetic disc for the voice kind of like a cassette. I call it Rhoda because the voice sounds like Rhoda Morgenstern from the Mary Tyler Moore Show and Rhoda.
You channel gives me nostalgia for the time before I was born. I love it
I'm reminded of my mother's Radio Shack Alarm Clock. The alarm sound was a rooster crowing. It was solid black with a LCD display, a few aqua colored switches and a large aqua button for having it speak the time. When setting the time I had to listen to constant loud ding noises followed by the voice telling me the time. I still have it somewhere in my house.
Finally we have an epic swearing moment on one of your videos, David!
A blessing for the 8bit UA-cam Poop channel 😂
0:47 this will get remixed into something terrible
I was rolling. It totally caught me off guard. 👍🏻😎
This video reminded me of a wristwatch my late great grandma gave to me that audibly told you the time when you pressed a button on it. I was so fascinated/amused by it that she got me one of my own. I don't remember the brand, but it was big, silver and it made a ding or gong sound before telling the time in a robotic voice.
It's been 11 years since her passing, thank you for bringing back that memory.
I love your wonderful expeditions into the past :)
Thanks for this, David! A real trip down memory lane for this geek that grew up in the 70's / 80's. That weather radio you showed - those were really cool back in the day. You should do a research video on weather radios from back then. Some of them got pretty sophisticated near the end. The tones broadcast on the NOAA radio frequencies would make them do things like automatically start broadcasting watch announcements or sound alarms when warnings were issued. Pretty cool old-school technology.
My grandma gave me a pyramid shaped one (different than the one in this video) that had a really creepy bitcrushed rooster sound for the alarm. I hated that alarm so much, especially when the batteries were getting old and the pitch would change
Ross RTC-8 alarm clock by any chance?
Was it white with an orange-ish colored button? I think we had one like that for my dad, more of a rectangular base than a square, still a pyramid shape.
My dad was given a portable alarm clock that could speak. And yes, it has this crazy electronic rooster alarm in it!
I'm not sure who made it but it looks like it's called the T-10A talking alarm clock. Mine was the black one with white button
ñew Custer has lights up when diner time restreàñts use them
Your channel is so great. It's like nostalgia overload for me. In my teens, I can remember pouring through the Radio Shack catalog for hours and just dreaming! Then in my later teens when my "cooler" friends were figuring out how to score booze, my friends and I were in the electronics section at Radio Shack figuring out what to build next.
I am the only one in my grade who wants to learn how to build a computer.
@@dontmindbeingblindd then relish on this fact dude. You may feel like a dude outtatime but learning and discovering is always in vogue.
Very jealous of that Spartus wood grain Alarm clock. I love the old Texas Instrument TMS5100 speech synthesizers chips that don't seem to be in production anymore. Those by far had the perfect balance of articulation and timbre. Hopefully one day I'll be able to snag a functional piece that can sit on my desk with one of those chips in it. Sort of like an Alarm clock! Great video as usual
I love the nostagia you give me for Radio Shack. My dad worked there from 84 to 91 I believe, and I got to see a fair bit of their computer tech growing up.
14:18 Ironically, I just watched a video where they also mentioned that slang "sick" was relatively new, but apparently they found footage of skateboarders using the term, I believe in the 80s. Either way, it wasn't a widespread term until later. If anyone is interested I'll post a link the video.
Wasn't it used that way in Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and the original TMNT cartoon though?
I remember using it back in the late '80s, along with a lot of other kids, in place of "cool" or "awesome" to the confusion of a lot of adults. Mind you, I grew-up in California, so there were a lot of suffer and skater terms floating around, including the "shaka" hand sign, the "Cool S" graffiti sign, and elaborate hand-slaps that ends with pinched fingers sliding apart to go to the lips smoking an imaginary joint. It was all quite tubular, my dude.
As primitive as the first one looks now I’m still impressed it was made nearly 60 years ago. Just consider what technology existed 60 years before that…
Thank you for another wonderful video
This was a great episode very very interested and thank you
Always have the "Time" to see a The 8-Bit Guy Video
Speaking of NOAA weather stations, my car is a 2000 Saab, it has 3 radio settings; AM, FM, and WB. The weather band actually works, and since I live in Florida it can be handy. My car is my only weatherband radio though lol...
Subarus also have (used to have?) weatherband on their radios. That really should be more common.
I always find 8bit guys videos so entertaining, all the vintage tech.
HAD ONE OF THESE for my Blind Grandfather that used to live with us. It used to the speak the time every hour or when he pressed the top down.
As always, super interesting Time Capsule Episode! Thanks man!
Love your videos man. Thank you. You have increased my interesting in this generation of tech a ton! Also allows me to under tech to a much deeper level.
Being blind since birth and born in 1978, I have lots of experience with different talking clocks. The Spartus is one I first saw in 1986. It has basically the same speech chip and functions as the Radio Shack VoxClock III which I got for Christmas in 1985. The Radio Shack VoxWatch is something I first saw in December of 1985, and its chip is based on that of the Sharp Talking Time I from the early 80's. The Talking Time I has a different alarm tune (Boccherini Minuet in A) and a few different features. Not that it'd be worth much, but with the distinctive chips the Spartus has, I wonder if it could be emulated in MAME or similar?
I am so glad you made this video, I’ve been especially curious about that Voxwatch ever since I found a little demo of it a few months ago. The Spartu Clock was I’m pretty sure rebranded by RadioShack as the Vox clock three. There was a vox clock to which I do have, it’s the same cube shape except it doesn’t have a screen and it has the same voice as the watch but a different alarm melody. Sharp also made a few talking clocks with the same voice and they also made a talking calculator clock. I love old talking electronics from the 80s, probably one of my favorite videos on your channel is that video of the worlds first digital answering system.
I had the talking watch and pyramid one. In the mid 80's, my parents had the best one though, a talking alarm clock that would cuss at you when using snooze.
You can imagine that any modern talking watch would be rigorously tested and any such 'fun' words immediately locked out and expunged in case someone had a laugh. Naughty, naughty! 😄
Love your videos!! Takes me back !! I feel like I'm Jr hs taking lessons. Thank you.
Excellent episode idea....loved it
i definitely want that Seiko pyramid clock in my house. it looks gorgeous
I love my realistic brand gear, they take me back to some happy times when i got to go to Tandy shop in Australia and see some grand things on the shelves. When i can i try and find the stuff i saw on the shelf and add it to my collection, hopefully still working.
What an interesting episode. Thanks!
I’m perhaps more impressed with the engineering of the child’s toy than any of the others.
13:45 Must have been a fairly popular tune in the 80s ...does anyone remember the musical duel in "Electric Dreams" (1984)?
The piece is "Minuet in G Major" by Christian Petzold (frequently erroneously attributed to J.S. Bach)
Also 5PM had me rolling!!
yes.. originally by Bach!... composed for Electric Dreams by the synth master Giorgio Moroder (yes the same "my name is Giovanni Giorgio, but everyone calls me Giorgio!")
That was one of the most significant parts of the movie. Can’t forget that scene!
I still love that movie, I remember that song too as well of the amazing graphic animations at that time.
@@WacKEDmaN Actually not by Bach, as Noland says, though they were misattributed until 1979.
Good spotting of that watch tune. I was looking to see if anyone noted it was a Minuet, as I was made to play that tune on a piano when I was taking lessons as a kid. 😁😁😁
5:02 Impressive, American electronics had fitted plugs back then, in the UK we still had to fit plugs on most items way into the 80’s
As far as I'm aware that's how they've been almost forever here in the states. My dad's got some projectors from the 1920s with Kodak branded plugs.
I always thought that was a long-lasting hold over from WWII. There's a LOT of copper in a proper UK plug, and it would have saved a lot to manufacture devices with the plugs to be fitted by the end user. Or perhaps it was an artifact from plugs not being standardized until much later than electrical goods becoming popular.
@@evensgrey Yah, I figure it was a holdover from then too -- especially since the UK changed plug and outlet designs right after WW2. People didn't change all their outlets right away, so it made sense to sell things without plugs, and wire up the kind of plug you needed.
Meanwhile, here in the US, the 2-prong version of our plugs and outlets was already a long-established standard. EDIT: And the 3-prong version had already been invented in the 1920s.
@@AaronOfMpls My current apartment was (or so I'm told) built in the 1930's, doing a rather bad imitation of a rich family home from about 1880. Two of the rooms in my apartment have what might be original electrical outlets, on the floorboard on the OUTSIDE walls, two prong, no polarization. (I've got modern outlets on the common interior wall of the two rooms. 15 Amps is plenty of power for everything I have in here, fortunately.)
@@AaronOfMpls my house still has a few round pin bakalite sockets. They are part of a disconnected ring main that no one bothered to remove when the house was renovated and rewired. House is about 60 years old and in the uk.
I remember having the pyramid clock when I was a kid. Loved that thing. Eventually I broke it by hitting the too too many times.
I would absolutely love to see a NOAA Weather Radio video from the 8-Bit Guy. I find it to be a really interesting topic.
This was good! I enjoyed learning about this, I don't know much about talking clocks at all so this was quite educational for me. Not much else to say other than good job!
Same here! LOL
its crazy how simple that first clock is,
still still a work of engenearing though
your into is so nice. please never change it!
I love voice synthesis and all things retro. My dad would watch you (and still does) when I was a wee lass. Interesting how I tend to watch now what he watched then :) love your content
Radio Shack was the bomb back in the day, I have many childhood memories of hearing the time announced at a few friends houses.
you should totally do one on NOAA radio's that would be fun.
My friends Dad had several of these, one at the house and one or two at the farm they had 5 miles outside of town. It was the Midwest, so these would go off with a siren alarm sound when there was a storm warning or tornado warning and then automatically key on the speaker so you could hear the announcement.
If memory serves it was fairly easy to modify the little cube ones to pick up other frequencies like air traffic.
I have a regular Spartus alarm clock from the 80s and I still use it. Same basic design with the wood look and just a smaller control panel in the front.
I also bought a regular Spartus alarm clock back in the ‘80s, which also had the same basic design. It was really inexpensive but worked for over 20 years.
5:03 that "oh yeah" caught me COMPLETELY off-guard! 😂
great episode I love your channel David
Any time I see Seiko in a title of a channel I love I get excited. Youre lucky to have that in your possession
but there's no seiko in the title
I know this is a completely different technology, but I had a pokemon pocketwatch that talked, and it was amazing. There's nothing better that being able to lay in bed with your eyes closed, and push 1 button in your hand and hear "SEVEN, FIFTY, FIVE!" (in Ash's voice lol) but just the convenience, it was great
Ok, the watch seems amazing, I love the tunes and even the ability to speak the time on the stopwatch mode, that's great.
Could your videos be any more calming and interesting like, this is the perfect thing to watch while I eat a midnight snack
It’s interesting that you mentioned that RadioShack made both a weather radio and talking clock, because they did eventually make a weather radio that also has a talking clock in it
The speaking watch brings me way back in the 90's when I got a calculator watch for my birthday. It was like Future Tech to me and my friends... I ended up getting in trouble once for using it during a math quiz in school and was told I couldn't wear it to school anymore. Ahh the good old days.
we need James biñd School yiu would
That was a great episode. The watch is still awesome.
I really like your videos. They're informative and fun to watch.😊
Oh man, that Spartus voice takes me back to the original Speak & Spell!! ♥️