The Moose

Years ago, I don't know how many, we used to amuse ourselves in the security department at the art school with a program on the office Mac called the Talking Moose. With voice simulation in its infancy, the Moose had trouble with dipthongs and contractions as well as regional patois, and a supervisor could type in an all points bulletin and transmit over the radio robo-man's mangled directive amid much giggling. My personal favorite was its utterance of  "I can't do nothing, I'm in a coma". I hadn't thought about the Talking Moose for a long time until this morning, when I walked by the automated pay station at the parking garage. The pay station was advising all who passed by to get their tickets stamped before they got into the car, with the exact same misplaced inflections as the old Mac! Before I wondered what else from the 80's I might get nostalgic about, I wondered why they didn't update the machine's software...then I started thinking about the A Team, Punky Brewster, the Waitresses and leg warmers.