Original ID : 341 Created On : 2002-11-24 Last Modified : 2005-05-01
The first speech simulation on a computer I ever heard, and I was amazed that beeps and tones could be bent into human voice. The game was Ghostbusters, although I can’t remember whether it was on the Spectrum or the C64. A cacky sub-MIDI-synth style rendition of Ray Parker Jr’s hit piped through your TV, and you got to join in by pressing the space bar (oh, hang on - Space Bar - must have been a C64) to make the computer say “Ghostbusters!” at the relevant moments. Only thing is, it sounded much more like “Granny Busters” than Ghostbusters. Which is going some, plucking a syllable from nowhere like that. Still. I tried to make Granny Busters catch on, but no-one listened to me. Sad little shit.
Jon B
We had a similar gang which purported to go out beating up grannies, which none of us actually did. Which led to the formation of the ill-fated two piece rock group Granny Initiative. We recorded a demo and sent it off to EMI, but amazingly they weren’t blown away by our covers of Imagine and Jealous Guy, for which we put pillows over the speakers of my stereo (to muffle the vocals), while I sang over the top and the other member played drums. We were 8.