[DECtalk] question about Kurzweil 1000 voices

[Don]

On 6/16/2021 8:44 AM, Jake McMahan wrote:
>                What Don is saying josh is that he works with different
> hardware, some that may not have the specs that would enable much room for
> anything spectacular.  However, I myself am interested in this type of thing
> and would love to hear samples or know more about it.  Point here is, Don
> considers hardware that would not normally bost a TTS engine if I’m correct.  I
> don’t think his specialty is writing software for the windows environment.

Exactly.  I make "things".  Call them "appliances" for want of a better word.
You KNOW there's a computer hiding inside.  But, the "thing" isn't a "computer"
and doesn't resemble a "computer".  No monitor, keyboard, disk drive, mouse,
etc.  My store bought toaster has a little computer inside just to make toast!

In this case, I have very little memory and very little "CPU" -- because
everything (including the original earpiece hardware & software) has to run
on a teeny tiny battery.  And, I want it to run for 10 hours -- a full "work
shift" or "day" -- so you don't have to recharge halfway through the day.

Without getting into a really long description of what I'm trying to do,
imagine your phone was JUST a bluetooth earpiece.  You walk into a business
establishment, workplace or someone else's home.  Now you want to connect
to their WiFi (this is an ANALOGY, not really what I am doing).

But, there may be 10 different WiFi signals available.  The first thing you
need to know is what "networks" they represent -- SSIDs.  They may
have names like "Public Access", "CenturyLink1234", "BlueMonday",
"CenturyLink2311", "PritnerNetwrk" (notice the misspelling!), etc.

Remember, you ONLY have a BT earpiece!  No "phone" that can display this
information!

(Continuing the ANALOGY as if it was really WiFi...)

Some of these may be "locked" / password protected.  So, you need that
information to be conveyed to you, as well.

Now you pick one of these.  But, discover that your BT earpiece is not
*authorized* to use it.  How are you told this?

Or, that the particular network is at its capacity.  How are you
told that -- and to "try again later"?  Or, perhaps redirected to
"Please try the Ovrflw12345 network"?  Or, that the network
will be down for maintenance at 12:45PM?

Beyond that sort of thing, how do you tell the BT headpiece which
*voice* you want it to use?  Does it just keep saying "Hello"
in each voice until you find one that you like?

How does it tell you how much battery life it estimates as remaining?
Or, that you've left the coverage area of the network that you had
joined?  Or, that it is experiencing poor signal quality?

The point is, if the BT earpiece is your SOLE "display", then it
needs to be able to tell you more stuff than if it had the
benefit of a cellphone's display (to which *it* was a slave!)
How many different types of beeps and bops can you use?

For extra credit, consider how you'd deliver your commands
to "whatever" if you didn't have the use of your hands.  Or
eyes.  Or voice.  Or...