Tamás Tarnóczy (1971)

The first electronic vowel recognition device in Hungary was made in 1971 by the physicist Prof. Tamás Tarnóczy, the head of the Acoustics Research Laboratory of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The device was able to recognize vowels from slow speech. The machine had a row of lamps to indicate recognition, and each vowel had its own lamp. The current vowel light came on as it was pronounced in a word. The device consisted of analog amplifiers and a series of filters. The device performed person-independent recognition of vowels correctly in 65%. It was presented at the 7th ICA Congress in Budapest in 1971.