[DECtalk] DECtalk for Linux

Tony Baechler tony at baechler.net
Thu Feb 24 00:02:20 EST 2011


Hi all,

I know I'm not the only one interested in this.  I and someone else are 
looking for a software DECtalk for Linux.  There used to be TTSynth, but 
the site, ttsynth.com is dead.  Unfortunately, Linux can't use SAPI 
voices.  There is a community of users using Speakup and Gnome Orca 
which are screen readers for Linux.  They don't like the ESpeak voices.  
While I can tolerate ESpeak and I have a serial port, Orca can 
apparently only use software speech unless you use different speech 
drivers.  I would very much like to get a software DECtalk that works 
with both Speakup and Orca.

I'm not a programmer and I have no idea what the technical issues 
involved are, but I know that it's completely different than SAPI.  I 
also know it can be done because TTSynth sold for $75 when it was 
available.  Apparently, there is software called Speech Dispatcher which 
acts as a speech server and connects the client, like Speakup to the 
software synthesizer, like Festival or ESpeak.  There's a program called 
a connector which gets the speech from the synthesizer to the client or 
something.  I'm unfortunately really not that familiar with the 
details.  If any of the developers could either contact me privately or 
join the Speakup list, they could get lots of feedback.  The Speakup 
developers would be the ones to ask about the connector and Speech 
Dispatcher.  I would be happy to test a Linux version.  I'm running 
Debian testing.

You can contact me at tony.baechler at gmail.com.  The Speakup list is at 
<http://linux-speakup.org/>.




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