Early 1980s Datsun/Nissan Voice Alert phonograph unit [video]
youtube.comActually, a few other cars had similar voice alert systems e.g., Mitsubishi and Oldsmobile.On the Oldsmobile the speech synthesis (Digitalker) was engineered by National Semiconductor. This page has more on it https://www.hagerty.com/media/car-profiles/talking-car-from-...
Does anyone understand what it does to play different recordings on the same physical surface? Are they interlocking spirals and it has slightly different starting point? Curious what's allowing it to use the same space for different recordings without swapping out mini records between plays.
Yeah, 6 interleaved spirals, allowing it to select a track by timing when it drops the stylus.
There are 6 electrical contacts spaced around the disc that close at the correct timing for each track.
This is described in the patent (pdf) https://patentimages.storage.googleapis.com/74/b1/1c/cb2bf12...
Linked by another poster below:
https://jalopnik.com/1982-datsun-voice-warning-box-used-tiny...
Look Mum No Computer did a really cool hack with one of these: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3EuP7vZRSo
We had a 1984 Nissan 300zx growing up, it said "door is ajar". Perfect Dad joke setup.
I thought it was the Chrysler New Yorker that used "door is ajar"?
Ha, I like that one even better "a door is a jar". No it isn't!
Here is some more evidence about nissan doing the same, but I can't find a video:
https://www.curbsideclassic.com/curbside-classics-asian/curb...
"In 1982, the ZX was facelifted, with an updated NACA hood duct, alloy wheels, taillights, more integrated bumpers, and other minor trim changes. ’82s were also bestowed with the infamous voice warning system, shared with the Maxima sedan. Among other things, it would inform you that your door was in fact, really a jar. I imagine it was a feature that was neat for the first two weeks, after which point it would slowly drive the owner insane."
I have an '84 300zx Turbo. It doesn't say "door ajar", and instead says "Left (Right) door is open" if I try to drive away with a door not properly closed. There's no dad joke set up.
> There's no dad joke set up.
No dad = no joke
"door is ajar" - jar of what, jelly? (and other variations)
That joke was already old in the 90's.
Meanwhile feigning fear and going "where is it?!?!? where's the bear?!?!?" after the GPS says "Bear right" will never get old (no matter what my children's eye rolls might be trying to say).
Whoever recorded those messages seemed a bit aroused about the right door being open.
Yeah there's some intensity in those door announcements for sure.
Sounds like the kind of intonation you get from being in a recording studio having your diction of four words picked apart so much they stop being words and suddenly you can't even say them in a neutral tone. "clipped vowel on 'right'" "emphasize 'door'" "nice long vowel on 'open'" and then you end up with... whatever that was.
I posted about this at top level, but should have done so here. My friends and I assumed our buddy's car had a warped disk or something that caused her to sound slightly pissed off. :-)
When I was a small child, my dad drove a 1983 Datsun Maxima that had this. As cheesy at it seems today, it felt magical and impossibly high-tech at the time, especially to me.
I grew up with Nissan my whole life, even worked for them for a bit when I was in the Auto Industry: it ranged from S30s, Hardbodies, B11/12, several L and D chassis, and then my own foray with mainly S chassis.
And can confirm it's a thing. Hell I still make the bing-bong chime (sounded like it was saying NI SAN) before the engine turned over in any car (over 50 now) I've ever owned because of those memories.
While Nissan may not be in it's glory days anymore, maybe the EV era will allow things to get exciting again.
You had 50 cars til now? What are you doing to those cars? Driving not longer than a year?
> You had 50 cars til now?
Easily. Probably before even hitting my early 30s.
The term is known as carcaine for a reason, funny enough I attribute not getting into (much) trouble growing up to cars, and it's what gave me access to meeting more people in tech/engineering/medical fields than just about anything else when I was outside of it. I spent most of my teenage years and young adult life immersed in motorsports at various levels and as I said worked in the auto industry for a while.
I had delusions of being a GT pilot for a while, too; so given the company I kept I got access to a lot of cheap/crashed chassis or front clips with misc parts to make things out of for a while. My first 2 businesses were all car/car part based, fintech was the outlier in that regard.
> What are you doing to those cars? Driving not longer than a year?
Bought, fixed, drove, got bored and sold/traded mainly.
50 is conservative to be honest. I still own my very first car, which also makes that same chime noise I mentioned.
Time wise... hard to say, I just keep them until I no longer want to deal with them and do the aforementioned or give it away if all else fails.
The only Nissan I still really want but haven't owned is a Nissan Patrol, which I almost bought when I was in Europe, but decided against it at the last minute and bought a really cool MK4 GTI to teach my friend how to drive and eventually give to him.
I got a Land Cruiser when I got back to the US instead and I'm happy with my purchase.
Sidenote: its stupidly easy to get a car registered to drive in Germany, even as a auslander, if you play their stupid games; what they get you on is that TUV BS which is honestly just another of making sure people subsidize the auto industry--who are incredibly powerful in that country and write many of the laws.
Thanks for the explanation. You living in Germany makes it even weirder, in Austria only the registration of the car is like 250$ one time payment, I guess in Germany its the same?
If I count correctly in the 10 years I've driven since getting my driver's license I had 4 cars already. So depending on your age 50 still sounds high but not that high anymore.
Curious about your age and net worth tbh, so it makes more sense
This sort of mechanism was in toys at that point, for example this Doctor Who K9 robot toy:
Also on this robot (warning, her blog is full of interesting things):
https://www.windytan.com/2013/02/the-atomic-powered-robot.ht...
I can't believe this showed up on the front page today! I was just talking to a co-worker about this:
Back in 1989, my college buddy Matt had a used Sentra that had that same voice. We assumed his got "warped" or something because the inflection of the female voice kind of rises at the end of some of her statements, making her sound annoyed with the human(s).
Listening to the video, however, it sounds exactly like I remembered--so I guess that was standard.
Chrysler did it better:
I'd like to hear the Japanese version of this.
> I'd like to hear the Japanese version of this.
>> I’m willing to bet the Japanese version sounds much more urgent and serious lol
You be the judge [0], in a US spec LHD Z31 no less.
There is a whole market for these kind of things, and Nissan Japan has been well aware of this. Check out the aftermarkets try at this anime sounding DASAI unit in an S15 [1].
Nissan JP took it even further when it announced its e-Power system and marketed a sort of anime waifu option as a co-pilot. I can't remember which it was, but it was really strange to see what was once a niche thing only geeks did in order to out-JDM/USDM each other on the internet or car meets to that.
Found it [0], in later videos from CES they mentioned it being linked to the metaverse; which honestly explains why this never took off as a feature.
Still, it's pretty interesting to see how quick Nissan were to spend resources on this when they realized there was a market for non-living based co-pilots. Dasai made one called Mochi [1] which you mount on your steering wheel which is a pretty innovative, low-tech alternative aimed at the tuner market.
It's kind of funny in a sad way, and know I'm going to sound old; but I'd rather spend money on defi gauges or tires to shred than these pointless gadgets as 50% of the time I ran mountain/track were in groups.
I’m willing to bet the Japanese version sounds much more urgent and serious lol
The over-optimizer in me is screaming "why is the bong on the analog track?"
The simplifier in me is screaming " Cool, less circuitry!"
One of these features memorably in the Kinky Friedman book "Armadillos and Old Lace".