MECHANICAL MAN

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 5 January 1929, Page 9

MECHANICAL MAN

MARVEL THAT DIRECTS MACHINES

npHE mechanical man, or Tele vox, was ' hailed as Hie perfect employee when it was first invented by R. <T. Wensley, of tho Westinglionse Electric and Manufacturing Company, because it could obey orders and do nothing else. It could not even speak when it was spoken to. Now the inventor has endowed it with words. (When it is hailed over the telephone it responds in a well-modulated and deferential voice:—

as employees of the War' Department assigned to report on the condition of the city’s water supply. .Adam, Cain and Abel furnish daily bulletins on the amount of water in each reservoir.

The part, played by the human voice in this interesting tribe is not a mere humorous conception on the part of the inventor, but is an indispensable part of the mechanism. The telephone company' does not allow any electrical or other devices to be hitched on to telephone receivers. In order to set the mechanisms in action it is necessary to make them sensitive to human speech range. Each machine is sensitive to a variety of sounds, and performs different functions, according to t'ho pitch in which it is addressed. The ability to talk as well as hear was necessary' to enable it to call for a number and to announce itself.

“Televox speaking.” It can even initiate conversation. If something goes wrong, for instance, at a power sub-station where the Televox is on duty, it can lift the receiver and say:—

“This is Televox calling for Main 5000.”

When Televox is connected with that number the conversation will continue in buzzer code. The man at headquarters will ask by interrogatory buzzes what is wrong, and the Televox will reply in the same form, one two or three buzzes, or a combination of buzzes, each meaning something different. In place of vocal cords the mechanical man has had a talking film introduced among its organs. The words to be spoken are recorded by photography in a film and introduced into the physiology of the man that was born in a laboratory. An English-speaking race of machines is now being reared by the Westinghouse Company to substitute for watchmen in power sub-stations where the information to be transmitted is not so complicated. Adjustments are made so that a break in the electrical current in one place causes a set-up in the machine which reports that fact. A break elsewhere causes a different setup and different report. The first three members of the mechanical race—familiarly known as “Adam,” “'Cain” and “Abel,” Eve being omitted because the automatic kingdom has not been divided into two factions —are on duty in Washington

“By means of the Televox,” Mr Wensley said, “a load dcspatcher of an electric power company or street railway can call up on any telephone unattended power plants or sub-stations, receive reports on the status of every machine in the station, and start or stop machines, open and close switches, and perform other operations at will.

“Automatic operation of electrical machinery 'has been in use for several years, but all systems now employed require special wires run from the supervising point at the station. Where stations arc many miles away, numerous such installations may be very expensive. Telephone connections to all points always exist, however, and by using these lines for supervisory control, the cost of the control system is greatly reduced. “Distance is no barrier to the operation of the Televox,” said Mr Wensley. “The operator may be in New York and the Televox in San Erancisco, yet the Televox will operate just as readily as if directed from the same room. ’ ’