[DECtalk] User dictionaries for Speak windows

Raymond Grote musicalman1 at comcast.net
Tue May 17 15:52:05 EDT 2011


Hi,
I've never heard anything below 4.3, but I bet anything from 4.0 to 4.4 
would do.
Personally, the way those Dectalks say the short A sound, like in the word 
back, is not quite right. The A is too harsh. newer versions sound better to 
me in this respect, but overall, the older Dectalks from 4.0 to 4.4 are 
preferred. Those newer Dectalks have their own set of issues.

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jayson Smith" <ratguy at insightbb.com>
To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 8:51 PM
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] User dictionaries for Speak windows


> Hi,
>
> Is there any chance we could hear a sample of the 4.3 SAPI as it currently
> stands? The reason is, if it's the same as the 4.3 Speak window which has
> been distributed all over the net for years, I'm sure that same sounding
> DECtalk turned into a SAPI would be wonderful news to the entire
> DECtalk-loving community. Corine, do you have any audio samples of the
> DECtalk sound you remember using? It'd be interesting to hear those and
> compare it to the 4.3 we all know and love.
>
> As far as what we mean by "Classic," I personally would say anything from
> 4.0 through 4.4 falls into that category. I'm not sure what version of
> DECtalk the Access32 software product used, but by then there were some
> changes I didn't like. Of course, others on this list may differ in what
> they would consider "classic DECtalk."
> Jayson
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Corine Bickley" <corine.bickley at gallaudet.edu>
> To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
> Sent: Monday, May 16, 2011 7:33 AM
> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] User dictionaries for Speak windows
>
>
>> What do you mean by classic? There have been many different versions
>> of DECtalk over the years. I am most familiar with the one that Dennis
>> Klatt used at MIT when Martha and I were members of the Speech Group
>> there headed by Prof. Ken Stevens, You may favor a different version,
>> perhaps one that was put out by DEC, or SmartModular, or Force, or
>> modified by one of the companies that licensed DECtalk for sale with a
>> particular screen reader. I don't have good information about all
>> those versions, only my memory of the one we used at MIT.
>>
>> We (Enable) have a couple of versions of DECtalk that we are
>> considering for release as "SAPI DECtalk". One older one, 4.3, has
>> been SAPI-ized and works with jvda and JAWS, it seems, but I have to
>> tune up the voices to match the version of DECtalk that we used at
>> MIT. We also need to test 4.3 with various current operating systems
>> and screen readers. The original DECtalk was written for VAX computers
>> (sold by DEC and used at MIT). The Windows versions do not sound the
>> same as the VAX version, due to differences in the way C code is
>> implemented on different platforms.
>>
>> I'll leave it to others to compare the voice quality to versions you
>> each use and prefer.
>> corine
>>
>> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 6:18 PM, Alex H. <linuxx64.bashsh at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>> Hi Corine,
>>>
>>> Does this mean that you have found a classic version of DECTAlk to use
>>> for the sapi?
>>>
>>> Alex
>>>
>>> On 5/15/11, Corine Bickley <corine.bickley at gallaudet.edu> wrote:
>>>> Snoopi will be in charge of creating user dictionaries for Enable
>>>> products, such as SAPI DECtalk. We're not ready yet to announce the
>>>> release of SAPI DECtalk, but hope to be soon.
>>>>
>>>> On Sun, May 15, 2011 at 6:04 PM, Jayson Smith <ratguy at insightbb.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>> Hi,
>>>>>
>>>>> Does anyone know how to create/generate/compile user dictionaries for
>>>>> the
>>>>> Speak windows? I know back in the days of the DECtalk PC, it shipped
>>>>> with
>>>>> software to take a properly-formatted text file and compile it into a
>>>>> binary
>>>>> dictionary file. I still have one of those files, and it doesn't work
>>>>> as a
>>>>> user dictionary in Speak43. Are there tools out there to generate user
>>>>> dictionaries, or are they pretty much just internal tools which should
>>>>> have
>>>>> been distributed but weren't? Snoopi, Ed, Corine, can anyone help 
>>>>> here?
>>>>> Thanks.
>>>>>
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