DragonDictate
Dragon Systems released DragonDictate, a large-vocabulary dictation system; the user had to pause after every word.
Why it matters
Recognition reached the market, and its price and awkwardness showed how far natural conversation still was.
The system cost $9,000: an add-in card for a 386 computer with at least 8MB of memory, software and a headset. In June 1990 BYTE wrote of a 25,000-word vocabulary, dictation at up to 40 words a minute and room to teach it another 5,000 words. Dragon's own paper of the same June shows how much training on the voice mattered: for two speakers, 45 and 18 per cent of words were recognised without adaptation, and 87 and 85 per cent after adaptation on 2,500 words. The company released continuous dictation in 1997: NaturallySpeaking was, in its own words, the first such large-vocabulary, general-purpose system.