[DECtalk] A history question

Brandon Misch bmisch2002 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 30 20:52:06 EST 2011


lol 

On Jan 30, 2011, at 8:38 PM, Alex H. wrote:

> Nah, it's 4.6.1. the crappiest of the dectalk versions IMO. Sounds
> like a frog mixed with pewy herman.... Lol
> 
> alex
> 
> On 1/30/11, Brandon Misch <bmisch2002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> wasn't that the demo that used to be on gw's site? if it was, it's now found
>> at dectalk.com
>> 
>> On Jan 30, 2011, at 8:28 PM, Alex H. wrote:
>> 
>>> 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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>>>>> 	
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>>>>> 				
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>>> 			
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>>> 		
>>>>> 		
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>>> 	
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
>>>>> 
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>>>> 
>>>> 
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