[DECtalk] new to the list

Dectalk at aol.com Dectalk at aol.com
Mon Feb 27 10:29:05 EST 2006


 
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.
 
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.
 
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.
 
Man I wish someone would do it.
 
 
SNOOPI
 
 
 
 
In a message dated 2/27/2006 1:20:16 A.M. Pacific Standard Time,  
ratguy at bellsouth.net writes:

Hi,
Let's not start World War III about this, but here are a few  more thoughts
on this.
First, if you've ever seen the darker side of the  net, you doubtless know
there are people out there who just love to take  popular commercial software
packages and crack them.  Copy protection  mechanisms are disabled,
registration key systems are bypassed or, if not  bypassed, a key generator
program is included so you can make up your own  key out of thin air.  In
some cases, the crackers may even have to  disable sanity checks built into
the programs designed to prevent just this  sort of happening.  Also there
are programs on the market designed to  encrypt executables so they can't be
cracked so easily.  E.G. you  write a program that's going to bring in
millions, run it through an  encrypter program before putting it on the
market so crackers either can't  crack it at all or have to do lots of extra
work to get the job  done.
Also, I'm not saying that by disassembling a program you get the  original
source.  You don't.  What you'd get is the machine code,  probably something
like assembly language for whatever microprocesser the  program was designed
for.  Let's say you took the Apple II Textalker  program and disassembled it.
You'd most likely get 6502 machine code.   Now Textalker may well have been
written in Assembly, but the original  source would probably have meaningful
label names if not comments, and the  developers of the original program
would know, or would have known, how to  make changes to their version.  With
a disassembled program you  wouldn't get the meaningful label names, comments
or anything, and you  wouldn't have the knowledge of the program's internal
structure that the  original developer had.  But still, if you knew what you
were doing  you could probably modify the software, and you could certainly
find out  how certain things were done.  In fact, the author of Cider Press
did  disassemble some copy protection code on some old Apple II cassette
tapes  to find out how it worked and how to circumvent it.
As for the DECtalk  software itself, I seem to recall that the DECtalk PC
uses an 80186  processor and the Express uses an 80386.  Both have some type
of  digital to analog convertor.  So it might not have been that  difficult
for Digital to modify the software to run under Windows, since I  don't
assume they're emulating an old board.
Jayson.

-----  Original Message -----
From: "Tony Baechler"  <tony at baechler.net>
To: "DECtalk Discussions"  <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Monday, February 27, 2006 3:22  AM
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] new to the list


> Hi.  I'm  sorry, but I'll have to disagree with you here.  First, the
> point  of compiling a program in the first place is so that the source
> isn't  easily apparent.  If it was possible to just randomly
> disassemble  software, we wouldn't need the GPL, BSD, Linux or any
> other open  source project.  I could just take the Windows kernel,
> crack it,  invent my own version and release it as the free kernel or
>  something.  It obviously doesn't work that way.  Also, remember  a
> previous discussion about emulating the Echo on the Apple II?   The
> problem is the same in both cases.  The Echo is a chip on a  card that
> goes into the computer.  The DEC-Talk is a  separate
> computer.  According to the manual, it has its  own
> microprocessor.  So, even if they had the firmware, it  wouldn't do
> them much good.  It's a nice thought though.   Considering that it
> keeps getting sold, it's no surprise to me that  they don't have the
> 4.40 source, or won't release it if they do.   Personally I would like
> to see a good, high quality open source  synthesizer, either using
> already existing hardware such as the  DEC-Talk or easily programmable
> software with good speech  quality.  I'm not interested in what's
> already out there for  free, it all sounds like crap and won't sing
> very well if at  all.
>
> At 08:12 PM 2/26/2006, you wrote:
> >I also  don't understand how Fonix could have lost the code.  If the only
>  >copy is on a dead hard drive obviously they could send the drive in to  a
> >data recovery company if they still have it, but those places  are
expensive.
> >I mean, with the move from Digital to Force and  then from Force to Fonix,
> >you'd think somebody somewhere would  have something laying around.  I
have
> >the firmware version  4.2CD for the Express as well as the DECtalk PC
drivers
> >which  as I understand it actually contain the DECtalk code which  is
loaded
> >onto the board at startup.  And of course the  4.3 demo is available at
the
> >archive.  I don't know how to  disassemble the software, but bet the right
> >person who knew what  they were doing could do it and create machine code
> >from which new  equivalent source code for the lost versions could be
>  >recreated.
>
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> DECtalk at bluegrasspals.com
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