What was IBM Shoebox?
IBM Shoebox was the world’s first speech-recognition system, created in 1961. It was a voice controlled calculator: you input a sum by speaking the numbers zero through nine and six command words, including “plus”, “minus”, and “total”.
To calculate 12 + 34 you could say “one two plus three four total” and it would respond with the answer.
You can see it being used by inventor William Dersch in this two-minute demo video.