this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2025
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Not just a speaker, but a microphone as well. They would record what you said then play it back in the furby voice. That's how they "learned to talk."
IIRC, that's a misconception. They had no microphone (although a speaker can technically be one). They did not have the ability to record new information, and were preprogrammed to seem to "develop" knowledge of the local market's language. They didn't actually learn to talk, because they lacked the necessary hardware.
There is indeed a microphone in them, and they definitely recorded things. One of the main functions of the toy was repeating back what you said to it, by using the microphone to record your voice, and then playing it back pitched and sped up. They specifically used a CZN-15E omnidirectional mic.
Okay, so looking into this more, there was a microphone, but it was not capable of recording things, at least not the original ones.
So, not exactly capable of recording your voice. They simply did not have the build quality or technology in the 90's version.
You can literally make just a loud noise, not speaking words, and it will play back the sound, pitched and sped up. Have you ever even had one?
Yes, I have, and in my experience, the originals did not replicate any speech, sound, or otherwise. The creator literally had to prove it to the NSA and did so (it was a huge scandal at the time), so I'm not sure why you're insisting otherwise. Did you have a newer one? Those do have the capability you're talking about.
This is a 90's toy company we're talking about here, do you think they really would have been able to make this functionality profitable? It is far cheaper (at the time, especially) to preprogram "words" from the local language into them than bother dealing with circuit design and updatable storage. There is someone in this very comment section that says the Spanish translation was incorrect and so they were confused by it as a child. Because it was preprogrammed with this mistranslation. There is literally no other explanation for that type of issue, other than the toy having the words baked in.
Since I provided the creator's own words, do you have anything at all that would back up your claim, other than the scandal that the OP is about that turned out to not be an issue? Or do you think that the NSA dropped this issue because they wanted to allow the toys with recording devices into the building as they were cute and fun?
I can't even find any listings or technical documentation for the czn-15e mic prior to 2017, and I kind of doubt the current iteration of that mic existed in the 90's at a cheap enough price to pair with some kind of onboard storage. Where did you get the idea that this specific microphone (which likely did not exist in 1998) was in it?
Further, how do you explain this fan made page of what words they could say with which actions if they made their own on the fly? https://official-furby.fandom.com/wiki/Furby_(1998)/Sensor_speech_mapping#%3A%7E%3Atext=This+is%2Cknown+Furby
All of this really seems to go against your claims, I'd be happy to be proven wrong if you have anything concrete.
You mean the same functionality of a TalkBoy? Another wildly popular 90s toy?
Because I have repaired a few of them.
The original mic was not a czn-15e, but yes, in modern repairs, you can drop that one in. It did not exist in 1998. You still haven't provided anything concrete, and I wish you would so we could be putting even amount of effort into finding the facts instead of you insisting something, and then me looking into it only to be a dead end. Since you claim to repair them, can you show me the wiring diagram of where newly recorded information is stored, and how that functions?
The talkboy is a different product, in price, size and design. So no, it wouldn't have been profitable for the creator to put actual recordability into them with a not-yet-invented microphone when people were already convinced otherwise (apparently, yourself included, even when I've provided the creator's own words, and a wiki page outlining exactly how to get them to respond, because they didn't record anything and were preprogrammed). You're gonna have to try harder than that, and provide evidence if you want people to believe the disproven (more than 25 years ago) claim that you are making.
Why did the NSA drop this ban if they were recording new data? Are they stupid?
Are you going to keep avoiding my question about concrete details?