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Windows Vista Speech Recognition Tested - Perl Scripting

scrubadub1Cited 8× on HN, 2018–2023
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comedy · general · evergreen · 2018–2023 on HN

A 2007 video of someone trying to write Perl scripts using Windows Vista speech recognition, with comically bad results. The footage shows the recognizer repeatedly mangling commands.

Cited as the classic, unintentionally hilarious example of early voice recognition failing, and of how dictation used to feel.

8 comments from Hacker News

@FabHK2023-06 · in “Apple Vision Pro: Apple’s first spatial computer”

As the excellent video "Windows Vista Speech Recognition Tested - Perl Scripting" hilariously demonstrates. (I trust that technology has improved over the last 13 years, though Siri is fairly similar.) ▶ this video

@MauranKilom2022-11 · in “Hey, GitHub – Waiting list signup”

Related: ▶ this video It does look like we've made some progress in the 15 years since. I do wonder how this would work in an office setting though - so much noise, so much distraction, and so much crosstalk between programmers...

@FabHK2020-12 · in “Artist releases album called “Ok Google Play Music” on Spotify”

One of the funniest video on YouTube in my opinion is this 2007 demonstration of voice recognition on Windows Vista for Perl programming. The lad spends the first 4.5 minutes trying to enter „open (INFO“ before typing it out. Absolute classic. „Thank you... delete thank you“ ▶ this video

@gitgreen2020-02 · in “On Voice Coding”

Here is a very early(2007) and unintentionally humorous attempt to script in Perl with voice recognition. ▶ this video

@zoltar2019-03 · in “Google’s new voice recognition system works instantly and offline (Pixel only)”

While not a demo of Dragon's NaturallySpeaking, I think of this video when someone mentions 90/00's-level consumer dictation software. For me, the video absolutely captured what it felt like to use those products. ▶ this video