(no subject)
When I was a kid, I had an electronic doohickey called the Talking Computron. I was thinking about it earlier, but couldn't remember the name, so I posted on whatwasthatone before thinking of googling 1980s electronic game "please choose an activity". I came across this webpage:
http://kenfager.com/wordpress/?p=195&cpage=1
This was the only result, besides my own whatwasthatone post. I fucking loved that thing when I was a kid. When you turned it on, it would tell you in its excessively polite, electronic, Stephen-Hawking-like voice to "Please choose an activity." One of the activities was spelling, and while I was very good at it (I was always an excellent speller), it had a tendency to pronounce certain words... strangely. I still distinctly remember this happening when I first got it:
Me (pushes button for Spelling activity)
Talking Computron (after several words): Spell the word "pothole".
Me (typing) P-O-T-H-O-L-E.
TC: That is incorrect.
Me: Buh? (types it again)
TC: That is incorrect.
Me: No it isn't! (slowly re-types, making sure I hit every letter correctly)
TC: That is incorrect. The correct spelling is A-P-P-L-E. Pothole.
Me: .... >_< who pronounces "apple" like "pothole"?
Also, it pronounced "biscuit" funny, kinda like "bee-sket".
There was also a Hangman-type game, and a game called "Follow Me" wherein the TC would beep out a sequence of notes and you had to follow them, hence the name. There was also an activity where you could beep out your own tune up to I think 32 notes. I think that was my favorite. It had slots for cartridges, but I never had any.
That thing was fucking awesome, though.
http://kenfager.com/wordpress/?p=195&cpage=1
This was the only result, besides my own whatwasthatone post. I fucking loved that thing when I was a kid. When you turned it on, it would tell you in its excessively polite, electronic, Stephen-Hawking-like voice to "Please choose an activity." One of the activities was spelling, and while I was very good at it (I was always an excellent speller), it had a tendency to pronounce certain words... strangely. I still distinctly remember this happening when I first got it:
Me (pushes button for Spelling activity)
Talking Computron (after several words): Spell the word "pothole".
Me (typing) P-O-T-H-O-L-E.
TC: That is incorrect.
Me: Buh? (types it again)
TC: That is incorrect.
Me: No it isn't! (slowly re-types, making sure I hit every letter correctly)
TC: That is incorrect. The correct spelling is A-P-P-L-E. Pothole.
Me: .... >_< who pronounces "apple" like "pothole"?
Also, it pronounced "biscuit" funny, kinda like "bee-sket".
There was also a Hangman-type game, and a game called "Follow Me" wherein the TC would beep out a sequence of notes and you had to follow them, hence the name. There was also an activity where you could beep out your own tune up to I think 32 notes. I think that was my favorite. It had slots for cartridges, but I never had any.
That thing was fucking awesome, though.