[DECtalk] A history question

Brandon Misch bmisch2002 at gmail.com
Sun Jan 30 20:36:03 EST 2011


wasn't that the demo that used to be on gw's site? if it was, it's now found at dectalk.com 

On Jan 30, 2011, at 8:28 PM, Alex H. wrote:

> I only wish I could grab DT 5.0, I then would have all the demo
> programs. :( but it's just tantelizingly too late. Fonix used to have
> the demos on the old website.
> 
> alex
> 
> On 1/30/11, Brandon Misch <bmisch2002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> if you want to hear a reading edge machine, you can find a podcast of that
>> over at blindcooltech.com i bring this up because that had dectalk 4.0
>> 
>> On Jan 30, 2011, at 5:22 PM, Blake Roberts wrote:
>> 
>>> I think the record Ed refers to is a collection of speech synthesis
>>> demonstrations that Dennis put together. He provided brief narration
>>> before
>>> each demoSomeone converted that record to an old sound format (.au). I
>>> think
>>> it's on dectalk.com somewhere. I took the .au version, converted to mp3,
>>> changed the file name and listed Dennis Klatt as the artist. If anyone
>>> would
>>> like to hear the mp3 version of Dennis's record, write me off-list.
>>> 
>>> Like Brandon, I would love to hear any other recordings of Dennis that
>>> exist, or recordings of older Dectalks.
>>> Blake
>>> 
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
>>> [mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Brandon Misch
>>> Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 1:56 PM
>>> To: DECtalk Discussions
>>> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] A history question
>>> 
>>> can you send what you can? or is that recording all that you have and are
>>> there any recordings of the old dectalks from the 80's besides that
>>> record?
>>> 
>>> On Jan 30, 2011, at 1:45 PM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 	He recorde alot before his voice went. By 1982 it was very
>>> different. And I don't have a lot of backups as the medu=iums changed.
>>> 	
>>> 	
>>> 	On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 12:43 PM, Brandon Misch
>>> <bmisch2002 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 	
>>> 
>>> 		his voice didn't sound that bad from that record about
>>> speech systems from the 30's to the 80's unless that wasn't him.
>>> 
>>> 		On Jan 30, 2011, at 9:56 AM, ebruckert Bruckert wrote:
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 			All the DECtalk voices have been there since 1982.
>>> In fact the Dennis voice was modeled by Dennis Klatt at the time to be his
>>> closest match to his own voice as he could. When I first met him his
>>> natural
>>> voice was already deteriorating due to his throat cancer.
>>> 			
>>> 			The DTC 01 does try to hear touchstones while at
>>> speaking it tries to cancel out the outgoing sound from the ingoing sound
>>> and in old systems used to work pretty good. Whether changes in telephony
>>> have made that more difficult I don't know.
>>> 			
>>> 			
>>> 			On Sun, Jan 30, 2011 at 8:58 AM, Jayson Smith
>>> <ratguy at insightbb.com> wrote:
>>> 			
>>> 
>>> 				Hi,
>>> 				
>>> 				Okay, this is getting way out there, but
>>> when did DECtalk get the eighth and
>>> 				ninth voices? I remember hearing a sample of
>>> DECtalk in I think it was
>>> 				Dialogue Magazine on flexible disk. My
>>> parents had a copy. I heard the piece
>>> 				in 1989, not sure when it was actually done
>>> though. At that point, DECtalk
>>> 				only had seven voices, from how I understand
>>> it. Dennis and Wendy weren't
>>> 				present.
>>> 				Then in November of 1989 we got our Kurzweil
>>> Personal Reader with DECtalk in
>>> 				it. All nine voices were there, in pretty
>>> much the same form they kept until
>>> 				Digital became Compaq and Force got hold of
>>> DECtalk. I think the version on
>>> 				the Kurzweil was something older than 4.0.
>>> While the voices sounded a lot
>>> 				alike, there were some pronunciation
>>> differences.
>>> 				
>>> 				We got our first DECtalk PC running version
>>> 4.0 in mid 1993, and our first
>>> 				DECtalk Express in mid 1995.
>>> 				
>>> 				Over all, I'd have to say my favorite
>>> DECtalk version is 4.2CD, the version
>>> 				that's running on all our DECtalk Expresses.
>>> 4.3 is excellent too, and it's
>>> 				all over the place in the DECtalk Archive,
>>> thanks to the speak43 program
>>> 				making the rounds. From what I heard of 4.4
>>> in the demo sent to this list
>>> 				yesterday, it sounds pretty good. I'm not
>>> exactly sure what version of
>>> 				DECtalk Access32 uses, but by then there
>>> were a few changes. We got our copy
>>> 				of Access32 in mid 1998. In particular, the
>>> B sound, as in the words bin,
>>> 				bye, and bag, almost had an extra sound like
>>> it was trying to put an r in
>>> 				there. Not quite sure how to describe it.
>>> 				
>>> 				I think my least favorite version is 4.61.
>>> Don't know if I ever heard 4.63.
>>> 				I think 4.64 sounds kind of weird, a bit
>>> sluggish or something. From what I
>>> 				heard of it, I think DECtalk 5 sounded
>>> better than 4.64, though not as good
>>> 				as the Digital versions.
>>> 				
>>> 				On a somewhat related note, a few years ago
>>> I purchased a DTC01 on eBay.
>>> 				It's running DECtalk 2.0 from July 1984, and
>>> you can tell it. Not sure how
>>> 				many voices it has. It's pretty much just
>>> been sitting around collecting
>>> 				dust, unfortunately. I thought I might use
>>> some of its telephone
>>> 				functionality, but the DTC01 had some
>>> limitations I didn't know about until
>>> 				I already had it, E.G. can't detect
>>> touchtones while speaking, can't
>>> 				automatically detect hangups, etc. So that
>>> never happened.
>>> 				Jayson
>>> 				
>>> 	
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>>> 	
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>>> 				
>>> 
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>>> 		
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>>> 	
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>>> 
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>> 
>> 
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