[DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?

[Raymond Grote]

Well, the sonic thing wasn't a real big thing at least for me, nor anyone 
else I knew that used it. It sounded strange, and I never did like dectalk 
above rates of400 or so.
Going off topic here, I wonder if a decent British dectalk was ever made?

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Pitermach" <pitermach at gmail.com>
To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 8:47 AM
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?


> Actually yeah. The driver was written by Tyler and I sort of helped him 
> out with it. The first version only did Paul and had sonic to speed the 
> rate up even more. I asked him to add voices, and that's the newer version 
> where sonic had to be removed because it was crashing things apparently.
>
> On 2012-02-01 13:52, Raymond Grote wrote:
>> Hi,
>> I was under the impression that both Dectalks were the same engine, just 
>> different versions of the driver, and the newer one supported voices but 
>> the older one didn't?
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Pitermach" <pitermach at gmail.com>
>> To: "DECtalk Discussions" <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 01, 2012 5:43 AM
>> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?
>>
>>
>>> About the issue with the second dectalk, what happens is almost every 
>>> parameter is actually changed, except the pitch and inflection, so after 
>>> you change voices you just need to manually raise the pitch or what ever 
>>> to set it straight.
>>>
>>> On 2012-02-01 03:18, Blake Roberts wrote:
>>>> Doris,
>>>> I discovered the other day that two Dectalks for NVDA exist. I was able 
>>>> to
>>>> try both out after obtaining them and reinstalling NVDA. Both 
>>>> NVDA-specific
>>>> Dectalks have issues. In the first one, only Paul is available as a 
>>>> voice.
>>>> To me, that version of Dectalk for NVDA sounds similar to 4.4, though I 
>>>> have
>>>> no idea what DT version it is based on. The second Dectalk for NVDA 
>>>> lists
>>>> all 9 voices, but apparently is based on another version of Dectalk. 
>>>> Some
>>>> of those voices sound, um, different. Example: Kipp sounds like he's 
>>>> going
>>>> through puberty or something similar. If anyone wants to experiment 
>>>> with/use
>>>> Dectalk for NVDA, write me off-list. As far as  I know, Dectalk for 
>>>> NVDA is
>>>> not officially supported by the NVDA developers and I don't know who 
>>>> created
>>>> Dectalks for NVDA.
>>>>
>>>> Regarding Dectalk for Jaws, there is Dectalk Access32. Problem: Freedom
>>>> Scientific broke Dectalk Access32 functionality in an earlier version 
>>>> of
>>>> Jaws. Since a Jaws-specific version of Dectalk Access32 is no longer 
>>>> sold or
>>>> supported by FS, I sort of understand why  Freedom Scientific won't fix 
>>>> the
>>>> problem. Another member of this list found a workaround to make Dectalk
>>>> Access32 work with Jaws which involves uninstalling Eloquence.
>>>> Blake
>>>>
>>>> -----Original Message-----
>>>> From: dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com
>>>> [mailto:dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com] On Behalf Of Doris and Chris
>>>> Sent: Tuesday, January 31, 2012 8:56 PM
>>>> To: DECtalk Discussions
>>>> Subject: [DECtalk] DECTAlk 4.4 Public Domain?
>>>>
>>>> with all the discussion of singing dectalks, it was a couple of times
>>>> mentioned that dectalk version 4.4 is in the public domain.
>>>>
>>>> Is there a version of this or can one be made available that works with
>>>> screenreaders?
>>>>
>>>> I enjoy the dectalk songs I have heard and am amazed at the creativity 
>>>> and
>>>> finesse and perfection that goes into those songs but this is nothing I 
>>>> have
>>>> any interst in persuing myself .
>>>>
>>>> I like dectalk for its clear speech and low footprint on older systems 
>>>> and I
>>>> would love to have a working version to use with my screenreaders, i.e. 
>>>> jaws
>>>> and nvda. For nvda especialy it would be nice to have a free dectalk
>>>> version. nvda comes with espeak, which is free and open source. espeak 
>>>> is
>>>> certainly usable and I like its responsibeness but dectalk has much 
>>>> clearer
>>>> speech and would be much easier to understand for those used to more 
>>>> human
>>>> sounding synths.
>>>>
>>>> With all the time and energy devoted to making dectalk sing and talking
>>>> about this, if there is a public domain version of dectalk available, 
>>>> could
>>>> some of the time and energy be devoted to giving us a free dectalk to 
>>>> just
>>>> use with screenreaders or a free sapi version?
>>>> I do not know what would go into this but I'd like to see something 
>>>> that is
>>>> usable for the broader masses and especialy for nvda users.
>>>> nvda is coming of age and a decent free synth with it would be such a
>>>> blessing!
>>>>
>>>> Doris
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
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