[DECtalk] A history question

Sun Jan 30 20:40:13 EST 2011

Me too. It must have really sucked for nobody to have a copy of it.
I've seen archives from the old DT lists that suggest people have used
it, some liked it and others didn't really care for it and thought it
was a bit of a rebuild from prior versions.

Alex

On 1/30/11, Jayson Smith <ratguy at insightbb.com> wrote:
> 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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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
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>>>>
>>>>
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