[DECtalk] A history question

Sun Jan 30 20:38:17 EST 2011

I don't think there was ever a 5.0 demo at GW. I'm surprised nobody seems to 
have a copy of it laying around.
Jayson

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Brandon Misch" <bmisch2002 at gmail.com>
To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Sunday, January 30, 2011 8:36 PM
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] A history question

> 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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