The Pattern Playback

An early (1940's) experiment in speech synthesis, this device made spectrograms from sound input and used them to play back an approximation of what it "heard"-- including some rather odd sentences.

These days a chicken leg is a rare dish.
It's easy to tell the depth of a well.
Four hours of steady work faced us.
A large size in stockings is hard to sell.
Never kill a snake.