[DECtalk] dtc01, was: Re: A history question

Jayson Smith ratguy at insightbb.com
Sun Jan 30 17:29:31 EST 2011


Hi,

As with many other model numbers, I have no idea what the C stood for. No 
doubt it meant something, possibly even something internal to Digital. In 
short, the DTC01 was a standalone unit, probably about the size of a modern 
VCR. It had an on/off switch, a volume wheel, one or two audio jacks (not 
sure which,) two phone jacks and two serial ports, both 25-pin. The power 
supply, which used a standard computer power cord, even had a fan in it, 
believe it or not. Not exactly what you'd call portable by today's 
standards, but probably pretty good then for a synthesizer that good.

On another note, I can well remember when the DECtalk PC and DECtalk Express 
cost upwards of $1200. The reason was undoubtedly, Digital had the best 
thing out there and they knew it. How things have changed!
Jayson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pitermach" <pitermach at gmail.com>
To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 5:13 PM
Subject: [DECtalk] dtc01, was: Re: A history question


> Hi,
> You can call me stupid or something, but, what, exactly, is a dtc01. I 
> guess
> dt is for dectalk, I just wonder what is the c for.
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Jayson Smith" <ratguy at insightbb.com>
> To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 11:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] A history question
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> Here's a short recording of my DECtalk DTC01 using firmware 2.0 from July
>> of
>> 1984.
>> http://q-audio.net/d/18422
>> Jayson
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- 
>> From: "Brandon Misch" <bmisch2002 at gmail.com>
>> To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
>> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 1:56 PM
>> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] A history question
>>
>>
>> can you send what you can? or is that recording all that you have and are
>> there any recordings of the old dectalks from the 80's besides that
>> record?
>>
>> On Jan 30, 2011, at 1:45 PM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
>>
>>> He recorde alot before his voice went. By 1982 it was very different. 
>>> And
>>> I don't have a lot of backups as the medu=iums changed.
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Brandon Misch <bmisch2002 at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> his voice didn't sound that bad from that record about speech systems
>>> from
>>> the 30's to the 80's unless that wasn't him.
>>>
>>> On Jan 30, 2011, at 9:56 AM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
>>>
>>>> All the DECtalk voices have been there since 1982. In fact the Dennis
>>>> voice was modeled by Dennis Klatt at the time to be his closest match 
>>>> to
>>>> his own voice as he could. When I first met him his natural voice was
>>>> already deteriorating due to his throat cancer.
>>>>
>>>> The DTC 01 does try to hear touchstones while at speaking it tries to
>>>> cancel out the outgoing sound from the ingoing sound and in old systems
>>>> used to work pretty good. Whether changes in telephony have made that
>>>> more difficult I don't know.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Jayson Smith <ratguy at insightbb.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> Okay, this is getting way out there, but when did DECtalk get the 
>>>> eighth
>>>> and
>>>> ninth voices? I remember hearing a sample of DECtalk in I think it was
>>>> Dialogue Magazine on flexible disk. My parents had a copy. I heard the
>>>> piece
>>>> in 1989, not sure when it was actually done though. At that point,
>>>> DECtalk
>>>> only had seven voices, from how I understand it. Dennis and Wendy
>>>> weren't
>>>> present.
>>>> Then in November of 1989 we got our Kurzweil Personal Reader with
>>>> DECtalk
>>>> in
>>>> it. All nine voices were there, in pretty much the same form they kept
>>>> until
>>>> Digital became Compaq and Force got hold of DECtalk. I think the 
>>>> version
>>>> on
>>>> the Kurzweil was something older than 4.0. While the voices sounded a
>>>> lot
>>>> alike, there were some pronunciation differences.
>>>>
>>>> We got our first DECtalk PC running version 4.0 in mid 1993, and our
>>>> first
>>>> DECtalk Express in mid 1995.
>>>>
>>>> Over all, I'd have to say my favorite DECtalk version is 4.2CD, the
>>>> version
>>>> that's running on all our DECtalk Expresses. 4.3 is excellent too, and
>>>> it's
>>>> all over the place in the DECtalk Archive, thanks to the speak43 
>>>> program
>>>> making the rounds. From what I heard of 4.4 in the demo sent to this
>>>> list
>>>> yesterday, it sounds pretty good. I'm not exactly sure what version of
>>>> DECtalk Access32 uses, but by then there were a few changes. We got our
>>>> copy
>>>> of Access32 in mid 1998. In particular, the B sound, as in the words
>>>> bin,
>>>> bye, and bag, almost had an extra sound like it was trying to put an r
>>>> in
>>>> there. Not quite sure how to describe it.
>>>>
>>>> I think my least favorite version is 4.61. Don't know if I ever heard
>>>> 4.63.
>>>> I think 4.64 sounds kind of weird, a bit sluggish or something. From
>>>> what
>>>> I
>>>> heard of it, I think DECtalk 5 sounded better than 4.64, though not as
>>>> good
>>>> as the Digital versions.
>>>>
>>>> On a somewhat related note, a few years ago I purchased a DTC01 on 
>>>> eBay.
>>>> It's running DECtalk 2.0 from July 1984, and you can tell it. Not sure
>>>> how
>>>> many voices it has. It's pretty much just been sitting around 
>>>> collecting
>>>> dust, unfortunately. I thought I might use some of its telephone
>>>> functionality, but the DTC01 had some limitations I didn't know about
>>>> until
>>>> I already had it, E.G. can't detect touchtones while speaking, can't
>>>> automatically detect hangups, etc. So that never happened.
>>>> Jayson
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
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