PSP-2 Portable Speech Processor

<p>This object is the PSP-2 -- the Portable Speech Processor 2 -- created in late 1978 at Stanford University through the leadership of Professor Robert White. This device was part of a very early experimental portable cochlear implant developed there, which was influential in the overall development of the technology. Approximately one million cochlear implants have been used by the hard of hearing and deaf people. The cochlear implants provide functional hearing, enabling users to hold conversations, develop spoken language skills, and much more. The team at Stanford working on this early, perhaps first, portable, multi-channel cochlear implant at the end of the 1970s was the same team that, in the 1960s, had been the first to implant a multi-channel cochlear implant in a patient, and introduced the term &ldquo;cochlear implant.&rdquo; Originally worn in a backpack by its users, this PSP-2 unit was responsible for taking incoming audio and processing it into signals then sent through the implanted electrodes into the user&rsquo;s auditory nerve. This PSP-2 unit uses several CMOS microprocessors from Intersil (IM6100) and 1K RAM chips to form a parallel, multi-processor system. Programming for the speech processor took place on a DEC PDP-11. A note taped to the top cover of the object says, "World's first portable cochlear implant signal processor + power supply."</p>