this footage comes from a film about him, "transcendent man." >> my name is raymond kurzweil, and i'm from queens, new york. >> reporter: while still in high school, he was invited on tv's "i've got a secret" to show off the computer he'd programmed to compose music in the style of classical composers. ♪ >> raymond, how old are you? >> i'm 17. >> do your parents know what you've been up to? ( laughter ) >> reporter: in his 20s, he invented a reading machine for the blind. >> they've invented a machine that can make any book talk. >> four score and seven years ago... >> reporter: his first customer was stevie wonder... >> obviously, it was a life changer. >> reporter: ...starting a lifelong friendship that led to the development of kurzweil's second major invention, a musical synthesizer that sounded like real instruments. ♪ >> reporter: in short, a string of breakthroughs that boggle the human brain when you think of how primitive computer brains were back then. but computers had been getting more powerful, fast. which got kurzweil thinking ahead. >> in 1981, i noticed this remarkable