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I was at the Ontario Science Center with the kid today and came across one of the few bits of tech from when I was a kid, a machine that speaks the word “coffee”. It consists of six seemingly identical breadboards with mostly analog components, mostly some seemingly large caps and several small pots per card.

It seems the active component was a large “chip” labeled DOA 40. I'd like to understand what this might be - op-amp? noise generator? Google turns up nothing. Any ideas?

Maury Markowitz
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    Are you, by any chance, talking about the VODER (or a descendant), developed by Bell Labs and presented 1939. That consisted mainly of a tone and impulse generator and a large recombination of filter banks and was perfectly able to produce understandable, synthesized sentences (provided you could "play" it like an instrument). That beast was even able to sing recognizable songs with text. – tofro Apr 23 '23 at 20:24
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    This machine was developed by Philips (I guess in their NatLab in Eindhoven, the Netherlands) and was part of a famous tech museum/exhibit called the “Evoluon”, also in Eindhoven. So, technically, the machine attempts to say “koffie”. ;-) Apparently, there were only two built. One of them was donated to OSC when the Evoluon exhibit was dismantled. There are several sources (and movies) about this machine that you can find online. Sorry, no idea how it was constructed. Just fond memories. – WimC Apr 24 '23 at 05:34
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    @WimC - ok that found me a few bits and pieces - Evoluon was cool! - but that "chip" is the thing I'm trying to find here - perhaps just some op-amps? It had a dozen leads or so - should have taken a picture. – Maury Markowitz Apr 24 '23 at 17:22
  • That thing is still there!? I'm hoping it's the same board I remember. I think it's been 40 years since I saw that. The one I remember was a huge board, with lights for "C", "O", "FF", and "EE", and a knob for speed, and a knob labeled "!" and "?". Do they still have the storage-tube-based vector-graphics terminal that would draw pictures of a car? – supercat Apr 24 '23 at 17:54
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    @MauryMarkowitz re: taking a picture, I can make out the 'DOA 40' text in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1A-L47cUnmY – Tommy Apr 24 '23 at 18:45
  • @MauryMarkowitz Given that comments must be assumed to be transient, maybe Tommy's link to a YouTube video could be added to the question? Also, I went to the science center multiple times as a kid in the 90s. How did I never see that machine? – ssokolow Apr 25 '23 at 03:35
  • @supercat - still there, but now moved to another area - the former "communications" room where all the cool stuff was is now largely empty, leaving only the loom and the van de graff. The car image you recall was a Tek 4014, which I haven't seen since high school. – Maury Markowitz Apr 25 '23 at 13:58
  • @MauryMarkowitz: I suppose it might have taken a miracle to have the thing keep working with the same tape cartridge, but I would think there would have been enough new old stock tape cartridges to copy the program onto. Storage tube displays have a really neat look, that it would be nice for people to be able to experience, and I wish I could see what a formed-character vector display like the ones previously used for air-traffic-control displays (I forget the name) looked like in person. – supercat Apr 25 '23 at 15:15
  • @MauryMarkowitz: Do they still have the mechanical telephone exchange? By some amazing good fortune, the owner of YouTube channel "Look Mum No Computer" saw a YouTube add for steppers from someone who had a complete exchange demo unit and was going to auction off the parts, but was delighted to sell the whole assembled unit to the YouTube channel owner, who has since wired in to connect phones throughout a museum. – supercat Apr 25 '23 at 15:34
  • @supercat - not that I saw, but I don't remember a switchboard myself. Most of the other cool things in the comms room are gone - the remote manipulator arms, that TV modifer, the big parabolic dishes, and, of course, the PDP-11. What is the tape you're referring to? – Maury Markowitz Apr 26 '23 at 16:20
  • @MauryMarkowitz: My recollection of the (presumably) Tek 4014, circa 1980, is that it was attached to a computer with some kind of cartridge tape drive whose rear cross section was similar to a VHS tape (I don't know how far into the machine the cartridge went, and I might be massively off on the dimensions)., After the user made each selection it would take awhile to load the data for the next set of options off the tape. Perhaps the computer was later upgraded to use a disk drive, since that would be faster and less wear prone than tape. Thinking about it, a machine with one tape drive... – supercat Apr 26 '23 at 16:58
  • ...as the only primary storage would seem a little weird, though perhaps there were two drives and one was empty, or perhaps the machine could have had two tape drives but if the exhibit only needed one there was no reason not to move the other drive to somewhere more useful. – supercat Apr 26 '23 at 17:00
  • Ohhh, the Tek, sorry, I thought you were talking about the "coffee machine". When I saw it, circa 1984, the Tek was connected via a RS-232 extender to a machine on the floor below, I believe a VAX or maybe a newer PDP. I don't recall it having a tape at that time. – Maury Markowitz Apr 27 '23 at 18:43

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Ok, WimC's lead on Philips was the key that led me to this techsheet on the DOA40. Yes, it is an opamp.

For posterity, here's a link to a video of it in action.

Maury Markowitz
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