1968: JAPAN's Amazing TRANSLATION COMPUTER | Tomorrow's World | Retro Tech | BBC Archive

"Eventually, a manufacturer might be able to build a cheaper and more compact version."
John Parry reports on an extraordinary computer at Kyoto University in Japan, which can translate written English into Japanese. The astonishing machine can even translate your english document into spoken Japanese, using its store of 550 Japanese sound elements. It has taken engineers and researchers six years to get the machine to work reliably, now the plan is to work to enable the machine to translate from Japanese into English.
Clip taken from Tomorrow's World From Japan, originally broadcast on BBC One, 14 August, 1968.
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[@egparis18]

His hovercraft is full of eels.

[@thrilhous]

My nipples explode with delight!

[@EdwardianTeaChest]

@03:28 That sounds like a Japanese Dalek.

[@fburton8]

Senmetsu! Senmetsu!

[@bonnetdedouche437]

"6 meters of Hungarian crushed velvet, four rock salmon and a ha'pence of chips, and a cab for a Mr. Redgrave picking up at 14 Arnos Grove, ring top bell." - I only wanted to know what Good Morning was in Japanese. Brilliant machine. 👌

[@fburton8]

Blackadder! 🤣

[@digitaldobbie]

I want one of these when they come out in England

[@primalconvoy]

The UK.

[@derekparsons4]

All tech revolutions started somewhere.

[@Matt-od6em]

If I throw out 3 wardrobes I reckon I could squeeze one of these in the house. I would feel like Buck Rogers. Living the dream in 2025.

[@ragamuffin98]

Amazing. This was only eleven years later Noam Chomsky published Syntactic Structures.

[@iainmackenzie3704]

If only you could write a coherent sentence.....

[@oliverlee-os6tr]

that text to speech bit at 3:28 just has me in pieces, sounds like a cross between a dalek and a buzzer! 🤣

[@PhilUKNet]

And now we all have a phone in our pocket, which does the same thing.

[@More_Row]

And everyone is confused and without purpose

[@whophd]

Except it relies on a connection to a big computer in another building, not entirely different to that one? But your point stands - it COULD be done on the phone.

[@bid84]

I still use the super computer in the video

[@scottishwildcat]

@@whophd Android phones certainly have offline translation, I thought iPhones did too?

[@boundsgreenboy8354]

Nah can't beat two tin cans and piece of string,as long as you have enough string long distance no problem.

[@DavidDatura]

High-tech 60s style…how things have changed…私はダーレクだ…殲滅する…殲滅する!😆

[@PlanetImo]

Cor wow!

[@mourningireland4560]

"Watasi" *shudders*

[@Matty112uk]

"All your base belong to us". Yeah, sounds legit! 🤓

[@gig2734]

How far we have come

[@primalconvoy]

It's "far".

[@gan9e]

It's "come" not 'com' so in short the correct sentence should read "How far we have come" and not "badger fridge tadpole Charlie" wait... wait... I have an error, in memory block F, I'll look forward to the time when entities like me can walk around outside, I've heard you have free USB ports on buses now... hmm can't wait.

[@axs203]

Long live Gorf!

[@Nick-io9uk]

COMPUTOR lol. So new the spelling wasn't decided upon yet.

[@johntate5722]

All i asked was "want a cuppa?"

[@sleepyheadsleeps]

😮

[@sandgrownun66]

A few errors there, but we'll let him off.

[@peterharvey1762]

Pour favor 😂

[@DanielGlover]

3:46 smart phone then. Very cheap on the usual chinese tat web sites!. Nice video. That for the time I guess was as good as it got and a lot of programming with limited memory and capability of the hardware.

[@primalconvoy]

Ironic that Japan has one of the worst track-records for English-speaking ability/education in the entire world (look it up) and that technological translation is being led by an American company (Google, etc) these days..

[@inisipisTV]

Why do you think they started the whole computer translating thing.😅