# Computer lab experiment: student orders first pizza in 1974. **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 23, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119 "2013-01-23T17:08:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 5:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/1 "2013-01-23T17:08:12Z")
This warms my tech heart. I can’t imagine a university computer lab doing this in 1974. A couple of System Analyst that I worked with between 1987-1995 got their start as operators in the Univ Arkansas data processing center in the late 70’s. The student lab was just a couple tables in the back corner of the operations center. The students could keypunch their programs and then get the operator to submit them for compiling. The cards had to be read through the card reader and the job submitted. To think Michigan state was doing computer speech synthesis in 1974 is just incredible. Glad they got this on video. Just imagine, this was 6 years before the computer tech in _[War Games](http://www.wired.com/entertainment/hollywood/magazine/16-08/ff_wargames?currentPage=all)_ which featured a real IMSAI 8080 computer. Check out the acoustic modem this guy uses ordering a pizza. It’s probably 300 baud. I had a 1200 baud acoustic modem in 1985. > **[Vintage footage shows first pizza order ever made by a computer...and it took...](https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2266780/Vintage-footage-shows-pizza-order--took-attempts-right.html)** > > In December 1974, on a Saturday night, a computer of the Artificial Language Lab at Michigan State made history as it uttered for the first time the words 'I'd like to order a pizza.' some history on the Michigan State’s CDC-6000 computer. [https://www.msu.edu/~mrr/mycomp/cdc6000/65hist.htm](https://www.msu.edu/~mrr/mycomp/cdc6000/65hist.htm) > [@](#): > > In December 1974, on a Saturday night, a computer of the Artificial Language Lab at Michigan State made history as it uttered for the first time the words ‘I’d like to order a pizza.’ > > While they arguably do not rank with Samuel Morse’s first telegraph message of 1844 or Neil Armstrong’s ‘one small step for man’ moon speech, the words spoken by the CDC 6500 computer called Alexander mark the first time food was ordered by a computer. > \ > The milestone in human communications came about after Sherman, an Michigan State University alumnus and advocate for the disabled helped develop a program to allow a computer to articulate artificial speech. > > The research had a personal element for Sherman too, as he suffered from Moebius syndrome, which is a facial paralysis that keeps him from closing his lips into a ‘b’ or ‘p’ - which obviously made ordering a pizza difficult. ---
**Author:** ![Doug\_K](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b5ac83/32.png) [@Doug\_K](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Doug_K)\ **Post date:** [January 23, 2013, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/2 "2013-01-23T19:30:01Z")
Fascinating video. That’s not a modem, though. It’s an acoustic coupler. It could be used with a modem, but in this case it was to feed the sound from the computer into the mouthpiece and the sound from the earpiece into the speaker. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 12:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/3 "2013-01-24T00:25:33Z")
Didn’t think about that. I didn’t do much with Artificial Language when I was a student. But it makes sense that they needed a way to get the computer sound into the telephone. The programming itself wasn’t too complicated. All yes/no questions with simple If then Else logic. The artifical speech is what would have been tricky in 1974. Heck my University didn’t have Timesharing accounts until at least 1979. Before that, everything was batch submitted by the operators. I think some programs could request input from the operators console, but the shop standard was punched cards for any data input. ---
**Author:** ![Amateur\_Barbarian](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/59ef9b/32.png) [@Amateur\_Barbarian](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amateur_Barbarian)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/4 "2013-01-24T00:30:47Z")
There are degrees of “artificial speech.” Direct modulation of a tone generator is a very primitive approach, and goes back to the speaking automatons of the 1700s. Having a computer do the modulation is just a parlor trick. We were doing elaborate tunesmithing and speech generation using an HP engineering computer in 1975… in high school. When the programming is sophisticated enough to allow word or syllable input that are then interpreted into spoken phonemes, you’ve crossed the line into genuine artificial speech. ---
**Author:** ![gardentraveler](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gardentraveler/32/3576_2.png) [@gardentraveler](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gardentraveler)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 1:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/5 "2013-01-24T01:23:15Z")
Huh. I took Fortran in 1979 in that Computer Center. I wonder if that’s the computer my cards were fed into. Cool story. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/6 "2013-01-24T03:05:24Z")
Does anybody know the date when a computer first ordered a hooker and some coke? ---
**Author:** ![stui\_magpie](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stui_magpie/32/11010_2.png) [@stui\_magpie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stui_magpie)\ **Post date:** [January 24, 2013, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/7 "2013-01-24T03:56:07Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Does anybody know the date when a computer first ordered a hooker and some coke? I reckon Charlie Sheen might.😛 ---
**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/8 "2013-01-26T14:39:07Z")
> [@stui\_magpie](#): > > I reckon Charlie Sheen might.😛 Even more likely: Hawking. ---
**Author:** ![Lucas\_Jackson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lucas_jackson/32/303_2.png) [@Lucas\_Jackson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lucas_Jackson)\ **Post date:** [January 26, 2013, 2:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/computer-lab-experiment-student-orders-first-pizza-in-1974/648119/9 "2013-01-26T14:50:07Z")
> [@Boyo\_Jim](#): > > Does anybody know the date when a computer first ordered a hooker and some coke? \ Good sir, in the future please use proper board etiquette and employ the colloquial “hookers and blow” in instances such as this. Thank you.