[DECtalk] DECtalk TTS licensing

[Don]

On 8/30/2021 2:35 PM, Chime Hart wrote:
> Well Don-and-All, if I wanted to accept any old speech to hopefully enjoy, I
> probably would have gone in to Linux earlier than 2003 when there were finally
> DecTalk drivers for Speakup.

You could have used a Votrax in the late 70's.  Or, DECtalk in the
early 80's.  But, both would have been *hardware* synthesizers...
boxes that sat next to your computer.

Getting text into them would have been the problem.  But, then again,
all that was available at that time were CP/M machines and early PCs.
So, no "windows", etc.

> Do I have some frustrations or inconveniences with
> these drivers? Sure but its lots nicer than struggling to understand e speak or
> something even worse. As to your comments about features, exactly the more
> items I as a user can tweak, the better.

I'm not sure you realize just how many choices have already been
made for you!  And, how intimidated you would be if they had
been available for you to muck with.

How large is the speaker's *head*?  How many formants?  What
frequencies, bandwidths and gains for each?  How do they
change, over time, for each "phoneme"?

How are letters mapped into sounds?  Is "measure" pronounced
"may zhure"?  Or, "meh zhure"?

How long a pause between words?  For each comma encountered?  Period?
Other punctuation?

How do I pronounce 1234?  1,234?  2021?  9/1/2021?

Each potential "adjustment" needs to be handled -- how do I
tell the synthesizer that I want the "comma pause" to be X?
What if I specify a "period pause" that is less than the
pause between words -- won't that sound stilted?

WHAT IF THE ONLY WAY OF INTERACTING WITH THE USER IS
THROUGH THE SYNTHESIZER... and the user has now mucked it up?
Do you put a big "reset" button in place to return things
to some semblence of "normal" -- even if the user doesn't
like that speaking style?

Those pre-decided decisions effectively train *you* in that
they force you to interpret what is uttered the way the
synthesizer wants you to think about those utterances, not
the way you would expect to encounter that speech "in the wild".

> An absolutely finest screen-reader
> ever made was Vocal-Eyes. Practicly any amount of configuring, many kinds of
> dictionaries made it an `extremely wonderful experience. DecTalk came with my
> first pc in 1994. I listen to it more hours each day than any1 including my
> Wife, so it better be enjoyable. The thing about choices, its your choice to
> make them or accept the defalts.