[DECtalk] DECtalk disassembly

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,
Has anybody looked at the DECtalk PC drivers?  As I understand it, the
DECtalk PC uses an 80186 processor, and the drivers load several files into
the memory on the board, so I would assume that execution of the actual
DECtalk speech software takes place on the board rather than the host
computer.  The files that are loaded are kernel.sys which is probably as
much of an operating system as is needed, dtpc.dic which is the DECtalk
dictionary, any personal custom dictionary, lts.exe which is probably the
letter-to-sound rules, ph.exe which probably has something to do with
phonemes? cmd.exe which could be a command processor or something? and
usa.exe which was introduced when DECtalk became a multi-language
synthesizer.  Version 4.0 of the DTPC drivers, for example, didn't have the
usa.exe file.  I think these files even have the headers of an MS-DOS
executable, with the exception probably of kernel.sys which would be the
most basic, low-level code.
Jayson.