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<DIV><FONT size=2>I heard it's sort of back. I heard about it in spam though.
Whatever service it is ripping off the name.</FONT></DIV>
<DIV> </DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #000000 2px solid; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px">
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial">----- Original Message ----- </DIV>
<DIV
style="BACKGROUND: #e4e4e4; FONT: 10pt arial; font-color: black"><B>From:</B>
<A title=Dectalk@aol.com href="mailto:Dectalk@aol.com">Dectalk@aol.com</A>
</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>To:</B> <A title=dectalk@bluegrasspals.com
href="mailto:dectalk@bluegrasspals.com">dectalk@bluegrasspals.com</A> </DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Sent:</B> Monday, February 27, 2006 5:10
PM</DIV>
<DIV style="FONT: 10pt arial"><B>Subject:</B> Re: [DECtalk] new to the
list</DIV>
<DIV><BR></DIV><FONT id=role_document face=Arial color=#000000 size=4>
<DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>I guess there is. I spoke with Corine today
and she said Dennis use to give out the codes. So yes, the code is out
there somewhere.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>Where is E-voice when you need it? E-voice was
a free voice mail services with tons of Dectalk groups on it. Out of all
those people I bet someone knew the codes.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>How the heck do we track it
down?</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>SNOOPI</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV>In a message dated 2/27/2006 1:33:50 P.M. Pacific Standard Time,
ratguy@bellsouth.net writes:</DIV>
<BLOCKQUOTE
style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: blue 2px solid"><FONT
style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: transparent" face=Arial color=#000000
size=2>Hi,<BR>You mean, there is publicly available source code for
DECtalk?<BR>Jayson.<BR><BR>----- Original Message -----<BR>From: "Corine
Bickley" <corine.bickley@gallaudet.edu><BR>To: "'DECtalk Discussions'"
<dectalk@bluegrasspals.com><BR>Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 11:29
AM<BR>Subject: Re: [DECtalk] new to the list<BR><BR><BR>Thanks for the
encouragement, Snoopi, but unfortunately I have no influence<BR>on Fonix
decisions.<BR><BR><BR><BR>I was thinking tho that we might be able to get
federal grant support<BR>(NIH-NIDCD) for such a project. Whoever thinks this
would be a good use of<BR>OUR tax dollars, please reply. If I can show
enough need for the project (to<BR>take publicly-available source code for
DECtalk and update it to run with<BR>current operating systems and be usable
to current screen readers and<BR>accessible devices), then we can show the
need. I'll volunteer to write the<BR>application, and have been able to get
funding for similar projects in the<BR>past, and I'd be extremely interested
in making this happen - IF enough<BR>users out there want it. Please let me
know what you think.<BR><BR>corine<BR><BR><BR><BR>-----Original
Message-----<BR>From:
dectalk-bounces@bluegrasspals.com<BR>[mailto:dectalk-bounces@bluegrasspals.com]
On Behalf Of Dectalk@aol.com<BR>Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 11:02
AM<BR>To: dectalk@bluegrasspals.com<BR>Subject: Re: [DECtalk] new to the
list<BR><BR><BR><BR>Well, Corine is on this list. When she reads that
this can be done, she'll<BR>probably call Fonix and scream for
permission. I've been trying to tell her<BR>that this could be done,
but Fonix says it can't. I know it can, I had<BR>friends crack and
modify other programs, even Windows professional. Illegal<BR>as you
can get, but we did it. So I laugh when Fonix says it can't be
done,<BR>I know it can.<BR><BR><BR><BR>I hope we get the go ahead, it would
put Fonix back on
track.<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>SNOOPI<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>In a
message dated 2/27/2006 3:00:22 A.M. Pacific Standard
Time,<BR>shaun.e@xtra.co.nz writes:<BR><BR>What we could do is approach the
current owner of dectalk and ask them if we<BR>could hack the old code out
of either the old dectalk synths, or out of old<BR>software, say 4.3 and
make some open source mod bassed on that.<BR>We couldn't call that
dectalk or access 32.<BR>Probably open dectalk simular to open office
or whatever though.<BR>We could have someone set up something on
sf.net.<BR>There are loads of such opensource projects on linux, I don't see
any<BR>problem if we get permission to, if we just hacked the code and based
on<BR>that made our own synth.<BR>After they will not sell olded out dated
software.<BR>At 09:52 p.m. 27/02/2006, you wrote:<BR>>Hi,<BR>>Let's
not start World War III about this, but here are a few more
thoughts<BR>>on this.<BR>>First, if you've ever seen the darker side
of the net, you doubtless know<BR>>there are people out there who just
love to take popular commercial<BR>software<BR>>packages and crack
them. Copy protection mechanisms are disabled,<BR>>registration key
systems are bypassed or, if not bypassed, a key generator<BR>>program is
included so you can make up your own key out of thin air.
In<BR>>some cases, the crackers may even have to disable sanity checks
built into<BR>>the programs designed to prevent just this sort of
happening. Also there<BR>>are programs on the market designed to
encrypt executables so they can't be<BR>>cracked so easily. E.G.
you write a program that's going to bring in<BR>>millions, run it through
an encrypter program before putting it on the<BR>>market so crackers
either can't crack it at all or have to do lots of extra<BR>>work to get
the job done.<BR>>Also, I'm not saying that by disassembling a program
you get the original<BR>>source. You don't. What you'd get is
the machine code, probably something<BR>>like assembly language for
whatever microprocesser the program was designed<BR>>for. Let's say
you took the Apple II Textalker program and disassembled<BR>it.<BR>>You'd
most likely get 6502 machine code. Now Textalker may well have
been<BR>>written in Assembly, but the original source would probably have
meaningful<BR>>label names if not comments, and the developers of the
original program<BR>>would know, or would have known, how to make changes
to their version.<BR>With<BR>>a disassembled program you wouldn't get the
meaningful label names,<BR>comments<BR>>or anything, and you wouldn't
have the knowledge of the program's internal<BR>>structure that the
original developer had. But still, if you knew what you<BR>>were
doing you could probably modify the software, and you could
certainly<BR>>find out how certain things were done. In fact, the
author of Cider Press<BR>>did disassemble some copy protection code on
some old Apple II cassette<BR>>tapes to find out how it worked and how to
circumvent it.<BR>>As for the DECtalk software itself, I seem to recall
that the DECtalk PC<BR>>uses an 80186 processor and the Express uses an
80386. Both have some type<BR>>of digital to analog
convertor. So it might not have been that difficult<BR>>for Digital
to modify the software to run under Windows, since I don't<BR>>assume
they're emulating an old board.<BR>>Jayson.<BR>><BR>>----- Original
Message -----<BR>>From: "Tony Baechler"
<tony@baechler.net><BR>>To: "DECtalk Discussions"
<dectalk@bluegrasspals.com><BR>>Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006
3:22 AM<BR>>Subject: Re: [DECtalk] new to the
list<BR>><BR>><BR>>> Hi. I'm sorry, but I'll have to
disagree with you here. First, the<BR>>> point of compiling a
program in the first place is so that the source<BR>>> isn't easily
apparent. If it was possible to just randomly<BR>>> disassemble
software, we wouldn't need the GPL, BSD, Linux or any<BR>>> other open
source project. I could just take the Windows kernel,<BR>>>
crack it, invent my own version and release it as the free kernel
or<BR>>> something. It obviously doesn't work that way.
Also, remember a<BR>>> previous discussion about emulating the Echo on
the Apple II? The<BR>>> problem is the same in both cases.
The Echo is a chip on a card that<BR>>> goes into the computer.
The DEC-Talk is a separate<BR>>> computer. According to the
manual, it has its own<BR>>> microprocessor. So, even if they
had the firmware, it wouldn't do<BR>>> them much good. It's a
nice thought though. Considering that it<BR>>> keeps getting
sold, it's no surprise to me that they don't have the<BR>>> 4.40
source, or won't release it if they do. Personally I would
like<BR>>> to see a good, high quality open source synthesizer, either
using<BR>>> already existing hardware such as the DEC-Talk or easily
programmable<BR>>> software with good speech quality. I'm not
interested in what's<BR>>> already out there for free, it all sounds
like crap and won't sing<BR>>> very well if at
all.<BR>>><BR>>> At 08:12 PM 2/26/2006, you wrote:<BR>>>
>I also don't understand how Fonix could have lost the code. If the
only<BR>>> >copy is on a dead hard drive obviously they could send
the drive in to a<BR>>> >data recovery company if they still have
it, but those places are<BR>>expensive.<BR>>> >I mean, with the
move from Digital to Force and then from Force to<BR>Fonix,<BR>>>
>you'd think somebody somewhere would have something laying around.
I<BR>>have<BR>>> >the firmware version 4.2CD for the Express as
well as the DECtalk PC<BR>>drivers<BR>>> >which as I understand
it actually contain the DECtalk code which is<BR>>loaded<BR>>>
>onto the board at startup. And of course the 4.3 demo is available
at<BR>>the<BR>>> >archive. I don't know how to disassemble
the software, but bet the<BR>right<BR>>> >person who knew what they
were doing could do it and create machine code<BR>>> >from which
new equivalent source code for the lost versions could be<BR>>>
>recreated.<BR>>><BR>>>
_______________________________________________<BR>>> DECtalk mailing
list<BR>>> DECtalk@bluegrasspals.com<BR>>>
http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/dectalk<BR>><BR>>_______________________________________________<BR>>DECtalk
mailing
list<BR>>DECtalk@bluegrasspals.com<BR>>http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/dectalk<BR><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>DECtalk
mailing
list<BR>DECtalk@bluegrasspals.com<BR>http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/dectalk<BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR><BR>----------------------------------------------------------------------------<BR>----<BR><BR><BR>>
_______________________________________________<BR>> DECtalk mailing
list<BR>> DECtalk@bluegrasspals.com<BR>>
http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/dectalk<BR>><BR><BR>_______________________________________________<BR>DECtalk
mailing
list<BR>DECtalk@bluegrasspals.com<BR>http://jaybird.no-ip.info/mailman/listinfo/dectalk<BR></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
<DIV></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4></FONT></STRONG> </DIV></FONT>
<P>
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