[DECtalk] A history question

Brandon Misch bmisch2002 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 30 20:33:15 EST 2011


i see. that was great reminds me of a message i heard on the reading edge. 

On Jan 30, 2011, at 7:57 PM, Jayson Smith wrote:

> 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
>>>>> 
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> DECtalk mailing list
>>>>> DECtalk at bluegrasspals.com
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>>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
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>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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