Robots Playing Synths Way Back in 1984
November 3, 2009 by Rico Mossesgeld
Filed under Robots
1984 was an eventful year for geekdom. That was when Apple released the Macintosh, people breathed a collective sigh of relief over George Orwell’s predictions failing to pass, and The Terminator debuted, bringing the concept of machines taking over mankind to contemporary mainstream consciousness.
1984 was also the year when Japan’s Waseda University developed the WABOT-2, an “intelligent humanoid keyboard player”. As SynthGear reports:
When it was made, it was considered the ‘most advanced robot of its time’ – it could speak Japanese, and it could play a song on a synthesizer, using both hands and feet, while reading the sheet music …read more
