Friedrich von Knaus(s) (February 7 or April 7, 1724 – August 14, 1789), was a German watchmaker and inventor who built clockwork mechanisms which could, in a simple way, play musical instruments, write short phrases, or conduct other individual, specialized tasks.
Together with his brother he produced the famous Kaiserliche Vorstellungsuhr (the Imperial Representation Watch) in 1750, commemorating the tenth anniversary of Maria Theresia's rise to the throne.
[2] In 1757, he completed work on a mechanical musician that played the flageolet, a kind of recorder.
A contest for mechanicians and organ manufacturers held in 1779 in Russia attests to their lack of success, in that the contest, held by the Academy of Sciences in St. Petersburg, used the production of a speaking head as the theme, and specified that the machine be capable of speaking the five vowels.
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