[DECtalk] purpose of the other DECtalk functionalities?

[Tom Kopec]

Well, there are several inter-related reasons..

First, there was no reason to put in the effort to take it out. Getting 
DECTalk Software to work and be responsive enough for assistive 
applications was a pretty major job, and stripping out stuff just wasn't 
on the list. We did not fork the source tree (at least initially, I have 
no idea where it is now).. the hardware and software products came out 
of the same tree.

Second, it is sometimes useful to be able to do things synchronously 
with the command stream.. so just because your platform can, say, play a 
.wav file doesn't mean that's the cleanest way to play it from an 
application.

Third, we tried hard to not break compatibility. A lot of the great work 
in Assistive Technology was/is done by very small teams or companies, 
and we really didn't want to make their lives any more difficult than it 
had to be. (the DECTalk team at DEC was one of these very small teams, 
so we understood this pain very well)

At least that's the view from my perspective..

...tom