Speech Synthesis (formerly known as) Re: Kraftwerk + something on-topic

[Ethan Robert Duni]

>I've been under the impression (for about the past 20 years) that the word
>*SYNTHESIZER* (a word which I've never liked) came directly from the old RCA
>Mark II synthesizer which was used on all Milton Babbit's early hits (before
>he sold out!). The RCA Mark II was built, I believe, as an early experiment in
>SPEECH SYNTHESIS, but was unable to put ATT's operators out of work.
-was this the machine that used (i think) tuning forks as oscillators? and
you fed punch cards into it with the pitch, gate and amplitude info on them?
maybe i'm confused with a different RCA Synthesizer, but i thought i read
some stuff on it a while back for a high school report on the history of
synthesis.. maybe i'm confusing some of this stuff with the telharmonium..
anyone?

Ethan Duni