[DECtalk] status of DECtalk SAPI from Enable Rehab

[Corine Bickley]

Hello DECtalk friends,
We at Enable, two former students of Dennis Klatt and his friend/mentor
Prof. Ken Stevens, learned of an interest in a version of DECtalk that was
SAPI compliant. Both of us had worked for short intervals with Force
Computers and then Fonix to try to keep DECtalk alive commercially in 2000.
However, our efforts were not appreciated at either company. We both were
laid off. However, we stayed in touch with Ed Bruckert who has kept DECtalk
alive for over 30 years. Ed was our manager at Force and then Fonix. Sadly,
Ed is now legally blind and can only advise, not program. He helps with
advice as he best as his memory allows.

Ed has explained that DECtalk has not made any money for many years. Enable
will never make any money off of any version of DECtalk, but in honor of
Dennis we'd like to keep DECtalk available. No other company else has any
interest in doing so. After much negotiation, Ed was finally able to
convince Fonix to let Enable license whatever old copies of DECtalk code
that we could find. That cost alone is far more than any profit Enable will
ever realize from sales of DECtalk. Also, Fonix owns any changes we make to
DECtalk code. They, Fonix managers, are smart. You may conclude that we at
Enable are stupid, at least naive, but please be assured that we are well
intentioned and want to make DECtalk available to whoever wants it, if
anyone does. It seems now that no one does, at least not any version that
Fonix will let Enable have access to. However, I can rest easy in knowing
that we tried. I'm sorry to all of you that we failed. We wish you well in
continuing to use whatever versions of DECtalk you have access to. It's
wonderful that those versions still exist - do enjoy them.

One of the old versions of DECtalk does work with at least some of the
voices, such as Paul. That old version is now being evaluated by the
Acoustical Society of America's Standards Committee for intelligibility of
TTS systems for blind users. If that old version evaluates adequately (the
first report will be presented this summer at an international conference by
Drs. Ann Syrdal and Taniya Mishra), particularly at high speeds, then we
will offer that version for sale as an add-on to screen readers of the
user's choice. Both the Paul and Betty voices are being evaluated. If anyone
on this listserv is interested in hearing the samples as well as the other
synthesizers included in the evaluation, please access the site:
http://dudley.research.att.com/tts/TESTS/TTSrateIntelligibility/html/index.h
tml
Sometimes this link is down because the ATT researchers are accessing the
results. Please try later if it doesn't work when you first try it. Several
kinds of TTS systems are included, each with a male and a female voice.
You'll have to re-enter the site quite a few times to hear samples of all
the different voices in all the different TTS systems. The presentation is
randomized, so there's no way to know whether you will hear DECtalk or some
other system each time.

Again, best wishes to all on this listserv in your continued use of DECtalk.

corine bickley
Enable Rehab, president