[DECtalk] It's time to bust some DECtalk myths

[Don]

Chime, when you say "volume, rate and pitch suddenly drop", what exactly
do you mean?  "Drop" is a relative term.  Presumably, it means that each
of these settings fall to values below those that you are accustomed to
using.

But, if you are accustomed to louder, faster and higher pitched than
"normal", would it be fairer to say they "return to their NORMAL values"?
Still usable but not what YOU would want?

What is the Linux interface to the unit?  What "device" does it appear
as?  Does it, for example, actually look like a serial port implemented
over USB?  This would seem the easiest way to interface legacy DECtalk
hardware to a more modern interface (USB).

If so, is there a way of sending text to the synthesizer that doesn't
rely on any "special processing" that the "Speakup driver" might be
imposing?  In other words, not letting the speakup driver talk to the
device and yet still be able to hear how the DECtalk sounds?

My thinking is that, perhaps, the driver isn't sending anything to
the DECtalk to deliberately cause these changes in rate, pitch and volume.
But, rather, that it may be sending too much data or too fast and the
DECtalk is crashing and reseting itself -- which need not be an actual
"reset" but, rather, just causing something in the software to decide
to "start over"... which happens to restore the initial settings for
rate, pitch, volume.

My questions are intended to determine if there is a way you can learn
the DECtalk's initial settings without speakup's drivers getting in the
way.  If the speakup driver thinks all is well, then it won't see a
need to restore YOUR settings to the DECtalk.  But, if the DECtalk has
"crashed" -- poor choice of word -- then it may have done so without
the speakup driver knowing anything has gone wrong.

Sorry, all of my hardware synthesizers predate USB so I can't see for
myself.

On 9/17/2022 9:21 AM, Chime Hart wrote:
> Since 2005 I have a DECTALK U S B from what was Axsol
> Solutions, however, they only have windows drivers. Well, I am only in Linux
> since 2006, running Speakup with their drivers, which have issues, where
> suddenly the volume, rate, and pitch drop. Probably even more than wanting a
> Linux U S B driver for this unit or Speakup, I really want to run Vocal-Eyes in
> Linux with the sound of 4.1C. Thing is, because this is an external unit, none
> of the dictionary type files are stored locally. You see, Vocal-Eyes had all
> kinds of dictionaries which are not available in Speakup. Since I am `certainly
> not a programmer, I have no idea how challenging any or all of these dreams
> would be? Certainly, we can discuss any of these off-list, unless others would
> benefit? Thanks so much in advance