Fig. 1. Scheme for distinguishing A and H by 15 phototubes.
Research has already begun on various features of the automatic typist because of its obvious labor-saving value. For example, many patents have been issued on schemes for dividing the area occupied by a letter or a digit into an array of spots, with a battery of phototubes each watching a spot. The reports from the phototubes together will distinguish the letter or digit. For example, if we consider A and H placed in a grill of fifteen spots, 5 long by 3 wide ([see Fig. 1]), then the phototubes can distinguish between A and H by sensing black or white in the spot in the middle of the top row. When we consider how easily and swiftly a human being does this, we can once more marvel at the recognizing machine we all carry around with us in our heads.
Automatic Stenographer
Another development that we can foresee is one that we can call the automatic stenographer. This is a machine that will listen to sounds and write them down in properly spelled English words. The elements of this machine can be outlined:
1. Microphones, which can sense spoken sounds (these already exist).
2. A memory storing the 40 (more or less) phonetic units or sounds that make up English, such as the 23 consonant sounds,
| p | b | l | ng |
| f | v | m | th |
| t | d | n | r |
| s | z | h | y |
| k | g | w | |
| ch | j | ||
| sh | zh (heard in “pleasure”) | ||
and the 17 vowel sounds,
| Long | Short | Other |
|---|---|---|
| A (“ate”) | a (“cat”) | ar (“are”) |
| E (“eat”) | e (“end”) | aw (“awe”) |
| I (“isle”) | i (“in”) | er (“err”) |
| O (“owe”) | o (“on”) | ow (“owl”) |
| U (“cute”) | u (“up”) | oi (“oil”) |
| OO (“roof”) | oo (“book”) |
3. A collection of the rules of spelling in English, containing many statements like