[DECtalk] A history question

Sun Jan 30 19:57:15 EST 2011

Hi,

I forget the exact details, but everything spoken in that recording was 
generated within the DECtalk firmware itself. There's a command you can send 
to get it to speak all that information about firmware version, code and 
dictionary dates, etc. Note that this doesn't apply, as far as I know, to 
the DECtalk PC, DECtalk Express, or any purely software version. I don't 
know what all, if any other, hardware-based DECtalk models had that feature.
Jayson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brandon Misch" <bmisch2002 at gmail.com>
To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 7:53 PM
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] A history question

> thanks for this. does the dectalk usually do that message? or did you 
> write the rest of it after the dectalk is running part?
>
> On Jan 30, 2011, at 5:11 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:
>
>> 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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