MT: You came up with the idea of using the random phonemes of a speech chip to make Q*Bert speak gibberish. How and why did you arrive at the idea and decision?
David Thiel: Out of frustration. Reactor was my first audio task for Gottlieb. Management insisted that I use the Votrax [phoneme generating chip]. For development there wasn't anything more than a list of Votrax phonemes, a dictionary and assembly code. I spend two days trying to get the Votrax to say "10000 Bonus Points". I would try it out on people as they walked through the lab. After hearing it they would say "What are Bogus Points"? Chris Brewer who was providing tech support for me made the offhand remark about feeding the Votrax random phonemes. I programmed a test and I loved the results. Within that week I saw the Q*Bert character hopping around and I told Warren, "Boy, have I got something for you".
MT: Many players still swear that they occasionally hear Q*Bert say naughty things. Can you finally put to rest the rumor that Q*Bert states nothing specific other than "Hello, I'm turned on" when the coin-op is powered up and "Bye-bye" at the end of a game?
DT: Hello and Bye-bye are the only deterministic phonemes fed to the Votrax in Q*Bert, other than the "ahhhhhhhhh" when Q*Bert goes off the pyramid. There was a Q*Bert in the cafeteria which talked during the attract mode. One day I am sure that I heard it say "Radio Shack". For the record: no profanity is programmed into phoneme stream in the Q*Bert sound program.