[DECtalk] DECtalk on old phone system

Piotr Machacz pitermach at gmail.com
Tue Feb 16 10:43:07 EST 2021


I definitely think sharing recordings like this is really cool, even to take a peak at how things like Dectalk were used back in the day. The circumstances in which this recording was discovered makes it all the more fascinating, as if someone didn’t quite finish configuring some IVR software and left in some example configuration data. It makes you wonder if that system indeed would let you read off some of that extra news and sports info. It would have been quite futuristic for the eighties, and it’s the kind of thing companies marketed text to speech for back then. In a 1984 episode of computer chronicles about speech synthesis which you can watch here <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B0S8SUzgViI>, in the segment where they interviewed someone from SpeechPlus one of the use cases for speech synthesis they suggested was having someone traveling being able to stop at a phone booth, dial in and read E-mails or other status updates. Dectalk was used in an even more impressive system in the very early 2000’s, in one of the first Main Menus Jonathan Mosen demonstrated a subscription-based dial-in service that allowed you to both read and reply to E-mails and usenet news groups, but more impressively had a full web browser so you could read and navigate almost any website over the phone and it was all powered by dectalk. 

> On 16 Feb 2021, at 15:28, Blake Roberts <beroberts at hughes.net> wrote:
> 
> Don,
> 
> Thank you for the insights into the commercial version of Dectalk for interactive voice response using a phone. My purpose in sharing the old recording was to demonstrate how Dectalk sounded when the recording was made.
> 
> Blake
> 
> 
> On 2/16/2021 5:20 AM, Don wrote:
>> On 2/13/2021 8:16 AM, Blake Roberts wrote:
>>> Hello everyone,
>>> Someone who is apparently not on this list sent me a recording of DECtalk on a
>>> phone system. The recording was made between 1984-1987. He dialed a wrong
>>> number and heard DECtalk speak a menu. He pressed a button other than specified
>>> options and heard DECtalk sing Edelweiss. This was interesting to him. He
>>> called back and recorded DECtalk speaking and singing.
>> 
>> The "commercial" application of DECtalk was for IVR (Interactive Voice
>> Response).  You'll note there are two RJ11 jacks on the back of the
>> unit:  one connects to the phone *line* while the other connects to
>> a (local) telephone handset.  This allows the DECtalk to answer the phone
>> and interact with the caller as driven by a computer connected to the serial
>> port.  Alternatively, a human user can use the telephone handset to
>> access the phone line.
>> 
>> Note that the DECtalk Express lost the telco interface -- possibly as a
>> nod to its lack of actual use?
>> 
>> [I don't think any of my other synthesizers have telco interfaces!]
>> 
>>> The person who made the attached DECtalk recording decades ago encouraged
>>> sharing of his recording. Since his digitized version from an old tape recorder
>>> was at a very low volume, I used an audio editor to raise the volume somewhat.
>>> That should make DECtalk easier to hear. Enjoy this antique!
>> 
>> What's the value of a bandwidth-limited version of DECtalk speech?
>> Isn't it better to listen to the normal output from the synthesizer?
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dectalk mailing list
>> Dectalk at bluegrasspals.com
>> http://bluegrasspals.com/mailman/listinfo/dectalk
> _______________________________________________
> Dectalk mailing list
> Dectalk at bluegrasspals.com
> http://bluegrasspals.com/mailman/listinfo/dectalk

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://bluegrasspals.com/pipermail/dectalk/attachments/20210216/9e1f58b5/attachment.html>


More information about the Dectalk mailing list