[DECtalk] A few questions

GUI Access guiaccess at covad.net
Sat Oct 1 23:45:50 EDT 2005


>2.  Way back several months ago, somebody I can't remember who said they
>would be getting a copy of DECtalk 4.6.3 and could give it to us.  Did you
>ever get it, or what's the deal there?  I looked recently and there's still
>no demo available.  I really do want to know if they did restore the old,
>pre-Force voices.


It saddens me to say this, but the 4.6.3 "classic" voices are 
extremely disappointing.  They kind of remind you of the classic 
DECtalk but they are not the classic DECtalk.  They are different 
than either the 4.6.1 voices or the voices on the DECtalk USB (which 
is supposedly 5.0).

What is strange is the 4.6.3 classic voices kind of remind me of the 
old Speech Plus 2000 text-to-speech.  Many will know this TTS better 
as it was the TTS used in TeleSensory's VERT Plus.

Quick DECtalk lineage which makes this even more interesting: 
DECtalk started out its life in the late 1970s as MItalk.  MItalk was 
licensed to Speech Plus, eventually being sold to TeleSensory. 
Dennis Klatt continued to develop MItalk which later became Klattalk. 
Klattalk of course was the basis for D.E.C.'s DECtalk.

I have no idea where the intellectual property of TeleSensory's VERT 
ended up after (1) TeleSensory sold off their non-VI access products 
and/or (2) TeleSensory up and croaked earlier this year.  As far as I 
know no one has done anything with this technology.  Then out of the 
blue Fonix released this new DECtalk that sounds remarkably like 
Speech Plus 2000.  Hmmm.

I'm not at liberty to post (or send to anyone) the 4.6.3 DECtalk 
demos.  Bug the heck out of Fonix and get them to get off their 
collective assets and post the demos.  They assured me that this was 
going to happen back in March but obviously it hasn't.

GUI Access




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