Science Fiction
Dictionary
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Latest By
Category:
Armor
Artificial
Intelligence
Biology
Clothing
Communication
Computers
Culture
Data Storage
Displays
Engineering
Entertainment
Food
Input Devices
Lifestyle
Living Space
Manufacturing
Material
Media
Medical
Miscellaneous
Robotics
Security
Space Tech
Spacecraft
Surveillance
Transportation
Travel
Vehicle
Virtual
Person
Warfare
Weapon
Work
"We are all repositories for genetically-encoded information that we're all spreading back and forth amongst each other, all the time. We're just lousy with information."
- Neal Stephenson
 |
| Tik-Talker | ||
| A method of scrambling spoken speech for encoded transmission. |
| He had been abducted from his home in Ann Arbor sometime Sunday night. He could not remember how, nor what his captors had looked like. There was a long ride somewhere in some sort of vehicle, a strange room, and blindingly bright lights. . .
And the questions. . . . “Who was questioning you?” “I couldn’t see. Just a voice. An odd voice.” “A human voice?” “No. Definitely not . . . not what I heard.” The old man hesitated. “It didn’t make sense, but I was sure it was a tik-talker.” Bahr’s eyebrows went up. The tik-talker reduced speech to a burst of seven pulse characters, reassembling and unscrambling them at the receiving end. It was quite reliable, but the speech itself always had the tonal curiosities of electronically sliced language, and was easily identified by anyone who had ever heard it before. |
| Technovelgy from The Sign of the Tiger,
by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer). Published by Amazing Science Fiction Stories in 1958 Additional resources -
|
Another quote:
We think of unusual speech effects as being part of the modern era, but compare the Tik-Talker to the multiple sample voice used in Nat Schachner's 1937 story The Shining One, which provided "that queer, slurred, alien-sounding accent of the future".
The tik-talker reduced speech to a burst of seven pulse characters, reassembling and unscrambling them at the receiving end. It was quite reliable, but the speech itself always had the tonal curiosities of electronically sliced language, and was easily identified by anyone who had heard it before. Other men who were questioned all confirmed the "curious singsong of a tik-talker intermediary."
Comment/Join this discussion ( 0 ) | RSS/XML | Blog This |
Additional
resources:
More Ideas
and Technology from The Sign of the Tiger
More Ideas
and Technology by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer)
Tech news articles related to The Sign of the Tiger
Tech news articles related to works by Alan Nourse (w/Meyer)
| Polish Turns Your Nail Into A Stylus |
| Huawei Pura X Folding Phattie Phone |
| Positioned Cybertrucks With Free Starlinks WiFi In LA |
| Will Whales Be Our First Contact? |
Want to Contribute an
Item?
It's easy:
Get the name of the item, a
quote, the book's name and the author's name, and Add
it here.
| <Previous | Next> |
|
|
|
Technovelgy (that's tech-novel-gee!) is devoted to the creative science inventions and ideas of sf authors. Look for the Invention Category that interests you, the Glossary, the Science Fiction Invention Timeline, or see what's New.
|
Science Fiction
Timeline
1600-1899
1900-1939
1940's 1950's
1960's 1970's
1980's 1990's
2000's 2010's
'It diverts integers of the data, the fundamental message-units, so that they no longer agree.'
'Clothes are no longer made from dead fibers of fixed color and texture that can approximate only crudely to the vagrant human figure...'
'Books were just a commodity that had to be produced, like jam or bootlaces.'
'...it rears and spreads its fan. It can pick one man out of a crowd.'
'...a new plastic with the characteristics of an avian eggshell.'
'It was a pushpot, which could not possibly be called a jet plane because it could not possibly fly. Only it did.'
