In 1961, Kelly and colleagues Carol Lochbaum and Lou Gerstman created one of the most famous moments in the history of Bell Telephone Laboratories by using an IBM 7094 computer to synthesize speech.

[4][5] A demonstration by Kelly and Gerstman took place on May 10, 1961, at a meeting in Philadelphia of the Acoustical Society of America where a reporter noted that "A machine that talks— and sings— stole the show today as the old Bellevue Stratford vibrated with the speed of sound.

The new gadget, a modified mechanical brain, recited passages from Shakespeare and sang musical selections in response to card-punched symbols, which were fed to it.

Arthur C. Clarke of 2001: A Space Odyssey fame visited his friend and colleague John Pierce at the Bell Labs Murray Hill facility and heard this remarkable speech synthesis demonstration.

Clarke was so impressed that he used it in one of the climactic scenes of his novel and screenplay for 2001: A Space Odyssey,[8] when the HAL 9000 computer sings the same song as it is being disabled by astronaut Dave Bowman.