[DECtalk] A history question

Sun Jan 30 20:28:39 EST 2011

I only wish I could grab DT 5.0, I then would have all the demo
programs. :( but it's just tantelizingly too late. Fonix used to have
the demos on the old website.

alex

On 1/30/11, Brandon Misch <bmisch2002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> if you want to hear a reading edge machine, you can find a podcast of that
> over at blindcooltech.com i bring this up because that had dectalk 4.0
>
> On Jan 30, 2011, at 5:22 PM, Blake Roberts wrote:
>
>> I think the record Ed refers to is a collection of speech synthesis
>> demonstrations that Dennis put together. He provided brief narration
>> before
>> each demoSomeone converted that record to an old sound format (.au). I
>> think
>> it's on dectalk.com somewhere. I took the .au version, converted to mp3,
>> changed the file name and listed Dennis Klatt as the artist. If anyone
>> would
>> like to hear the mp3 version of Dennis's record, write me off-list.
>>
>> Like Brandon, I would love to hear any other recordings of Dennis that
>> exist, or recordings of older Dectalks.
>> Blake
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
>> [mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Brandon Misch
>> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 1:56 PM
>> To: DECtalk Discussions
>> 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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