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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>Well, Corine is on this list. When she reads
that this can be done, she'll probably call Fonix and scream for
permission. I've been trying to tell her that this could be done, but
Fonix says it can't. I know it can, I had friends crack and modify other
programs, even Windows professional. Illegal as you can get, but we did
it. So I laugh when Fonix says it can't be done, I know it
can.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>I hope we get the go ahead, it would put Fonix back on
track.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>SNOOPI</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV>In a message dated 2/27/2006 3:00:22 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,
shaun.e@xtra.co.nz 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>What we
could do is approach the current owner of dectalk and ask them if we could
hack the old code out of either the old dectalk synths, or out of old
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 problem if we get permission to, if we just hacked the code and based on
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 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 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.
With<BR>>a disassembled program you wouldn't get the meaningful label
names, 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 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 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></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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