PlainTalk Microphone

Background

PlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis (MacinTalk) and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc. In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many researchers in the field. The result was "PlainTalk", released with the AV models in the Macintosh Quadra series from 1993. It was made a standard system component in System 7.1.2, and has since been shipped on all PowerPC and some 68k Macintoshes. The PlainTalk Microphone was introduced alongside the AV models in the Macintosh Quadra series in 1993 but was also sold separately. It was designed to be positioned on top of the screen and to be sensitive to sound from the front. It had a longer connector, the tip of which was used to provide the microphone with bias voltage.