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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>Man I wish someone would crack version 5.40.
Fonix doesn't have the uncompressed files for the Dectalk versions that we all
know and love. Ed somehow has bad files of some newer version that has
problems and has been trying to duplicate 4.40. Don't ask me what happened
to the files, I've been trying to figure that out for 2
years.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>If anyone could crack version 4.40 and unconpile it,
you'd be helping in ways you can't imagine! What puzzles me is why Fonix
can't crack it. They bought it, they own it, so I'll never understand why
they say they can't crack it.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>I have a friend that could crack it, and I tried to
talk him into doing it. He wouldn't because he was scared of getting into
trouble. If I had the skills I'd do it myself and then give it to Ed so we
can all get back on track.</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
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<DIV><STRONG><FONT size=4>Man I wish someone would do it.</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 1:20:16 A.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>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></FONT></BLOCKQUOTE></DIV>
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