Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
> I believe an original talking clock is being maintained in the > Telecommunications Museum in Hawthorn (Australia). Third floor, > Hawthorn Telephone Exchange. > > > John > > >> -- >> >> Message: 1 >> Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 02:58:45 -0700 >> From: "D. Resor" >> To: "'Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement'" >> >> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock >> Message-ID: >> >> >> >> >> >> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" >> >> I believe this is the glass plate MkII Talking Clock which referred >> to in >> AUS. It was retired in 1990. Also shown is the digital replacement >> system. >> >> Progress is great, but in some ways it's also kind of sad. >> >> The speaking Clock pt1, Talking Clock >> https://youtu.be/fp4zlMZVcmM >> >> The Speaking Clock pt 2, Talking clock >> https://youtu.be/9LVzKHOodC4 >> >> >> Donald Resor >> N6KAW >> >> >> >> -Original Message- >> From: time-nuts On Behalf Of >> vilgot...@gmail.com >> Sent: Monday, September 30, 2019 9:50 PM >> To: time-nuts@lists.febo.com >> Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock >> >> The electro-mechanical-optical clock was made obsolete years ago and the >> voice is now generated electronically. I think the reason it's being >> closed >> down is that the PSTN is digital and so delays are unpredictable >> leading to >> possible errors in the time. According to a news item I saw the >> company that >> runs the clock and supplies the audio wants to keep it going but the >> national network supplier (Telstra) is determined to close it down >> because >> of "network incompatibility". >> >> I made a talking clock with that format a few years ago. It is based >> on an >> AVR processor that uses the mains frequency as a reference. The voice is >> generated by an ancient speech synthesizer chip that sounds like Stephen >> Hawking and the time is simultaneously displayed on a VFD. A PIR >> detector >> switches off the outputs when there's no human around. It can be seen at >> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmg0YsHlB3g&t=3s >> >> It wouldn't be hard to use the same platform to translate the time >> from a >> GPS receiver into the spoken and visual word. >> >> Morris >> >> >> >> -Original Message- >> >> -- >> >> Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 08:00:25 +1000 >> From: Neville Michie >> To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement >> >> Cc: Neville Michie >> Subject: [time-nuts] Talking Clock >> >> >> Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant >> developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination. >> The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass >> disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a >> century. >> The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local >> observatory time. >> Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been >> removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run >> telephone system. >> Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital >> space, >> and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock >> could be >> driven by any time nut's disciplined time source. >> So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all >> use? >> >> ?At the third stroke the time will be?? >> >> cheers, >> Neville Michie >> ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 3:00 AM Mark Sims wrote: > It would be pretty easy to teach Lady Heather how to do it. Heather > already supports several different audible clock. One issue would be > constructing the message from several snippets. Currently Heather plays > sound files asynchronously and if you start one file before the last one > has completed they get mixed together. Another issue to work out is the > length of the combined message so that you know when to trigger playback. > I would do it like WWV. Have the time pulse generated artificially and its audio synchronized, and have the voice mixed over the top. So long as the voice message completes before the time mark, everything is fine. That would allow the simple time pulse to be synchronous and the voice to be asynchronous. -- Brian Lloyd 706 Flightline Spring Branch, TX 78070 br...@lloyd.aero +1.210.802-8FLY (1.210.802-8359) ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
Hello Dana The prototype system I built used an E1 digital telephony card with 30 lines. I think it cost about $12000/year to lease the associated 2 megabits per second data capacity but we didn't do that; we just commandeered a few lines from our site's capacity. I believe the live system needed several hundred lines to deal with peak demand, usually at DST transitions. Cheers Michael On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 6:00 PM Dana Whitlow wrote: > > What kind of telephone service would one request for a talking clock, that > permits a > large number of users to be listening in at once? I suspect that this > would be the real > difficulty and would incur considerable monthly expense. > > Dana > > > On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 9:08 PM jimlux wrote: > > > On 9/30/19 3:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: > > > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > > > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > > dissemination. > > > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass > > disks, > > > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. > > > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > > observatory time. > > > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > > removed by > > > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone > > system. > > > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital > > space, and > > > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be > > driven by > > > any time nut's disciplined time source. > > > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all > > use? > > > > > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > > > > > > > > > > using Bash on my mac: > > > > $ date +"The time is now, %H, %M, %S, coordinated universal time" | say > > -v Karen > > > > I think that one could do a bit of scripting and have it have your > > preferred wording, and synchronized to the top of the second. > > > > I leave it as an exercise for the reader to do it in French: > > $ say -v Amelie "Le Temps Universel Coordonné" > > > > > > ___ > > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > > To unsubscribe, go to > > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > > and follow the instructions there. > > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
I believe this is the glass plate MkII Talking Clock which referred to in
AUS. It was retired in 1990. Also shown is the digital replacement system.
Progress is great, but in some ways it's also kind of sad.
The speaking Clock pt1, Talking Clock
https://youtu.be/fp4zlMZVcmM
The Speaking Clock pt 2, Talking clock
https://youtu.be/9LVzKHOodC4
Donald Resor
N6KAW
-Original Message-
From: time-nuts On Behalf Of
vilgot...@gmail.com
Sent: Monday, September 30, 2019 9:50 PM
To: time-nuts@lists.febo.com
Subject: Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
The electro-mechanical-optical clock was made obsolete years ago and the
voice is now generated electronically. I think the reason it's being closed
down is that the PSTN is digital and so delays are unpredictable leading to
possible errors in the time. According to a news item I saw the company that
runs the clock and supplies the audio wants to keep it going but the
national network supplier (Telstra) is determined to close it down because
of "network incompatibility".
I made a talking clock with that format a few years ago. It is based on an
AVR processor that uses the mains frequency as a reference. The voice is
generated by an ancient speech synthesizer chip that sounds like Stephen
Hawking and the time is simultaneously displayed on a VFD. A PIR detector
switches off the outputs when there's no human around. It can be seen at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmg0YsHlB3g&t=3s
It wouldn't be hard to use the same platform to translate the time from a
GPS receiver into the spoken and visual word.
Morris
-Original Message-
--
Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 08:00:25 +1000
From: Neville Michie
To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement
Cc: Neville Michie
Subject: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant
developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination.
The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass
disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a
century.
The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local
observatory time.
Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been
removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run
telephone system.
Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space,
and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be
driven by any time nut's disciplined time source.
So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all
use?
?At the third stroke the time will be??
cheers,
Neville Michie
___
time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com
To unsubscribe, go to
http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com
and follow the instructions there.
___
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and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
Hi All, I have the Tasmanian unit of the German made TTL based speaking clock running in my garage. I've kept it going since it was decommissioned in the mid 2000s. In true Time-Nuts fashion I have it synchronised to the GPS. For extra fun, I broadcast it on FM 107.7 using a (legal) low power transmitter. This means people in my neighbourhood can still hear the just shut-down Australian speaking clock. Jim On Tue, 1 Oct 2019 at 18:00, Michael Wouters wrote: > I designed the hardware and wrote the software for the now defunct > Australian speaking clock. > The prototype pieced together the audio from fragments and it did > indeed take quite a bit of effort to get this to sound clean. > Mismatches in sound levels at the boundaries caused 'pops', for > example. I spent about a week with my headphones on. > > Cheers > Michael > > On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 12:08 PM Bob kb8tq wrote: > > > > Hi > > > > Based on only dimly remembered conversations long long ago: > > > > Getting all the “message fragments” so they sound natural and not choppy > is > > not quite as easy as it seems at first. It’s by not quite rocket > science, but there > > is more fiddling involved than one might think. > > > > One “solution” is to use fewer fragments and record larger portions of > the message. > > Back in the day, storage limited your ability to record every message > “full up”. > > > > Assuming you record the “at the stroke the time will be” only once, the > rest is > > under 3 seconds of audio. At maybe 16 bits / 32K sps. (yes that’s > overkill). this comes > > up just under 200 K bytes. Recording the full time message for every > minute of the > > day would be less than 270 megabytes. > > > > That’s a pretty small flash drive …. > > > > Bob > > > > > > > > > > > On Sep 30, 2019, at 4:00 PM, Neville Michie > wrote: > > > > > > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > > > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > dissemination. > > > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating > glass disks, > > > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a > century. > > > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > observatory time. > > > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > removed by > > > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone > system. > > > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital > space, and > > > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be > driven by > > > any time nut's disciplined time source. > > > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could > all use? > > > > > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > > > > > cheers, > > > Neville Michie > > > ___ > > > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > > > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > > > and follow the instructions there. > > > > > > ___ > > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > > and follow the instructions there. > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. > ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] Talking Clock
It would be pretty easy to teach Lady Heather how to do it. Heather already supports several different audible clock. One issue would be constructing the message from several snippets. Currently Heather plays sound files asynchronously and if you start one file before the last one has completed they get mixed together. Another issue to work out is the length of the combined message so that you know when to trigger playback. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
"Alexa, what time is it?" On Monday, September 30, 2019, Bob kb8tq wrote: > Hi > > Based on only dimly remembered conversations long long ago: > > Getting all the “message fragments” so they sound natural and not choppy > is > not quite as easy as it seems at first. It’s by not quite rocket science, > but there > is more fiddling involved than one might think. > > One “solution” is to use fewer fragments and record larger portions of the > message. > Back in the day, storage limited your ability to record every message > “full up”. > > Assuming you record the “at the stroke the time will be” only once, the > rest is > under 3 seconds of audio. At maybe 16 bits / 32K sps. (yes that’s > overkill). this comes > up just under 200 K bytes. Recording the full time message for every > minute of the > day would be less than 270 megabytes. > > That’s a pretty small flash drive …. > > Bob > > > > > > On Sep 30, 2019, at 4:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: > > > > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > dissemination. > > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass > disks, > > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. > > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > observatory time. > > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > removed by > > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone > system. > > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital > space, and > > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be > driven by > > any time nut's disciplined time source. > > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all > use? > > > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > > > cheers, > > Neville Michie > > ___ > > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > > To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/ > listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > > and follow the instructions there. > > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/ > listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. > -- Homo sum humani a me nihil alienum puto. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
On 9/30/19 7:05 PM, Bob kb8tq wrote: Hi Based on only dimly remembered conversations long long ago: Getting all the “message fragments” so they sound natural and not choppy is not quite as easy as it seems at first. It’s by not quite rocket science, but there is more fiddling involved than one might think. One “solution” is to use fewer fragments and record larger portions of the message. Back in the day, storage limited your ability to record every message “full up”. Typically one records 60 phrases - that is, rather than recording twenty, thirty, forty, and one, two, three and try to assemble them - you record all the numbers 00,01,02,03... After all, your time is *free* to do the recording, and it makes the software to play it back easier (you don't have to figure out "is this less than 20 in which case play phrase[0] through phrase[19], and then play phrasetens[t/10] + phrase[t mod 10] Assuming you record the “at the stroke the time will be” only once, the rest is under 3 seconds of audio. At maybe 16 bits / 32K sps. (yes that’s overkill). this comes up just under 200 K bytes. Recording the full time message for every minute of the day would be less than 270 megabytes. That would be a bit tedious.. There are, of course, myriad text to speech programs of varying quality available for just about every OS imaginable. Although, in 10 minutes of casual browsing, I've not yet found one for Latin - a suitable voice intoning the time in Latin periodically would seem to be a good addition to any time cave. Google translate does speak Latin, although I've not had my family classics scholar evaluate it. To my ear, it seems to have a distinctly Italianate accent (a terminal vowel added to words), although it does say "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" and "Carthago delenda est" correctly. That’s a pretty small flash drive …. Bob On Sep 30, 2019, at 4:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination. The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local observatory time. Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven by any time nut's disciplined time source. So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? “At the third stroke the time will be…” cheers, Neville Michie ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
What kind of telephone service would one request for a talking clock, that permits a large number of users to be listening in at once? I suspect that this would be the real difficulty and would incur considerable monthly expense. Dana On Mon, Sep 30, 2019 at 9:08 PM jimlux wrote: > On 9/30/19 3:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: > > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > dissemination. > > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass > disks, > > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. > > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > observatory time. > > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > removed by > > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone > system. > > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital > space, and > > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be > driven by > > any time nut's disciplined time source. > > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all > use? > > > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > > > > > using Bash on my mac: > > $ date +"The time is now, %H, %M, %S, coordinated universal time" | say > -v Karen > > I think that one could do a bit of scripting and have it have your > preferred wording, and synchronized to the top of the second. > > I leave it as an exercise for the reader to do it in French: > $ say -v Amelie "Le Temps Universel Coordonné" > > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. > ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
I like: https://uhr.ptb.de/ (press the speaker-icon to make it talk) Needs some adaption for your timezone though. (no rocket science) -- Marco On 01/10/2019 00:00, Neville Michie wrote: > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > dissemination. > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass > disks, > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > observatory time. > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > removed by > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, > and > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven > by > any time nut's disciplined time source. > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > cheers, > Neville Michie signature.asc Description: OpenPGP digital signature ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
I designed the hardware and wrote the software for the now defunct Australian speaking clock. The prototype pieced together the audio from fragments and it did indeed take quite a bit of effort to get this to sound clean. Mismatches in sound levels at the boundaries caused 'pops', for example. I spent about a week with my headphones on. Cheers Michael On Tue, Oct 1, 2019 at 12:08 PM Bob kb8tq wrote: > > Hi > > Based on only dimly remembered conversations long long ago: > > Getting all the “message fragments” so they sound natural and not choppy is > not quite as easy as it seems at first. It’s by not quite rocket science, but > there > is more fiddling involved than one might think. > > One “solution” is to use fewer fragments and record larger portions of the > message. > Back in the day, storage limited your ability to record every message “full > up”. > > Assuming you record the “at the stroke the time will be” only once, the rest > is > under 3 seconds of audio. At maybe 16 bits / 32K sps. (yes that’s overkill). > this comes > up just under 200 K bytes. Recording the full time message for every minute > of the > day would be less than 270 megabytes. > > That’s a pretty small flash drive …. > > Bob > > > > > > On Sep 30, 2019, at 4:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: > > > > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > > dissemination. > > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass > > disks, > > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. > > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > > observatory time. > > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > > removed by > > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. > > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital > > space, and > > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be > > driven by > > any time nut's disciplined time source. > > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all > > use? > > > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > > > cheers, > > Neville Michie > > ___ > > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > > To unsubscribe, go to > > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > > and follow the instructions there. > > > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
The electro-mechanical-optical clock was made obsolete years ago and the voice is now generated electronically. I think the reason it's being closed down is that the PSTN is digital and so delays are unpredictable leading to possible errors in the time. According to a news item I saw the company that runs the clock and supplies the audio wants to keep it going but the national network supplier (Telstra) is determined to close it down because of "network incompatibility". I made a talking clock with that format a few years ago. It is based on an AVR processor that uses the mains frequency as a reference. The voice is generated by an ancient speech synthesizer chip that sounds like Stephen Hawking and the time is simultaneously displayed on a VFD. A PIR detector switches off the outputs when there's no human around. It can be seen at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmg0YsHlB3g&t=3s It wouldn't be hard to use the same platform to translate the time from a GPS receiver into the spoken and visual word. Morris -Original Message- -- Date: Tue, 1 Oct 2019 08:00:25 +1000 From: Neville Michie To: Discussion of precise time and frequency measurement Cc: Neville Michie Subject: [time-nuts] Talking Clock Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination. The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local observatory time. Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven by any time nut's disciplined time source. So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? ?At the third stroke the time will be?? cheers, Neville Michie ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
You can buy one here https://www.tindie.com/products/nsayer/gps-talking-clock/ Best Wishes, Craig On Sep 30, 2019, at 3:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination. The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local observatory time. Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven by any time nut's disciplined time source. So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? “At the third stroke the time will be…” cheers, Neville Michie ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
Hi Based on only dimly remembered conversations long long ago: Getting all the “message fragments” so they sound natural and not choppy is not quite as easy as it seems at first. It’s by not quite rocket science, but there is more fiddling involved than one might think. One “solution” is to use fewer fragments and record larger portions of the message. Back in the day, storage limited your ability to record every message “full up”. Assuming you record the “at the stroke the time will be” only once, the rest is under 3 seconds of audio. At maybe 16 bits / 32K sps. (yes that’s overkill). this comes up just under 200 K bytes. Recording the full time message for every minute of the day would be less than 270 megabytes. That’s a pretty small flash drive …. Bob > On Sep 30, 2019, at 4:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: > > Here in Australia we are suffering the loss > of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and > dissemination. > The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass > disks, > has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. > The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local > observatory time. > Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been > removed by > the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. > Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, > and > with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven > by > any time nut's disciplined time source. > So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? > > “At the third stroke the time will be…” > > cheers, > Neville Michie > ___ > time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com > To unsubscribe, go to > http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com > and follow the instructions there. ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
Re: [time-nuts] Talking Clock
On 9/30/19 3:00 PM, Neville Michie wrote: Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination. The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local observatory time. Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven by any time nut's disciplined time source. So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? “At the third stroke the time will be…” using Bash on my mac: $ date +"The time is now, %H, %M, %S, coordinated universal time" | say -v Karen I think that one could do a bit of scripting and have it have your preferred wording, and synchronized to the top of the second. I leave it as an exercise for the reader to do it in French: $ say -v Amelie "Le Temps Universel Coordonné" ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
[time-nuts] Talking Clock
Here in Australia we are suffering the loss of one of the significant developments in accurate time keeping and dissemination. The talking clock, built in England, with sound tracks on rotating glass disks, has been on the Australian telephone system for more than half a century. The system was timed by quartz oscillators, synchronised to the local observatory time. Now in spite of the trivial cost of maintaining the system it has been removed by the money-hungry telco which took over the government run telephone system. Now it occurs to me that the sound tracks occupy a very small digital space, and with modern flash drives and a little logic the talking clock could be driven by any time nut's disciplined time source. So is there a time nut who could design a voice output that we could all use? “At the third stroke the time will be…” cheers, Neville Michie ___ time-nuts mailing list -- time-nuts@lists.febo.com To unsubscribe, go to http://lists.febo.com/mailman/listinfo/time-nuts_lists.febo.com and follow the instructions there.
