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

[Don]

If /dev/stty was a regular tty device (it may well be, I don't know
as I can't see it!), then the SpeakUp people could make it accessible
by not opening it in an "exclusive" use mode -- locked to prevent
anything else from accessing it while they are doing so.

This would just be a temporary change.  Or, maybe a "switch" that
allows SpeakUp to operate in "non-exclusive mode" -- user cautioned
not to dick with this unless they really know what they are doing!

This would allow you to manually route characters to that "device"
even while SpeakUp was doing so.  Obviously, this can confuse things
if SpeakUp is trying to say "Hello" and you send "Goodbye" to the
device!  Hence the caution against casual misuse.

The files under /etc/speakup/dectlk, if writeable, would likely allow
the user to set those parameters directly by writing specific values to
each of the files.  E.g., to make it speak faster, write "220" to the
/etc/speakup/dectlk/rate file.

If the files are readable, they likely represent SpeakUp's idea of
what these parameters are, presently.  So, if the "rate" was 150,
it would mean that SpeakUp last told the synthesizer to speak at
150 words per minute.

Note that this assumes nothing else can talk to the synthesizer!
We, of course, are asking for the ability to do exactly that!

As such, we could manually send a command to the DECtalk telling
it to speak at 200 words per minute.  I suspect the contents
of /etc/speakup/dectlk/rate would still show 150 -- because
we bypassed SpeakUp when we sent the commands directly to the
DECtalk!

A nicer implementation would have SpeakUp query the synthesizer
each time you read one of these files and return the current
setting FROM THE SYNTHESIZER -- instead of just whatever SpeakUp
remembered sending.

In that case, when the "drop" occurred, you could just read the
rate, pitch and volume "files" to see what they had changed to.
It would be equivalent to asking the DECtalk what each of these
parameters were, at the current time!

On 9/19/2022 9:56 PM, Chime Hart wrote:
> OK, first for Karen, as far as I know Speakup has individual drivers for each
> of its synthesizers which are supported. And yes Don I understand the concepts
> you are after, but so-far no1 on the Speakup list has mentioned any bipass way,
> but sometimes folks respond several days later. I just looked-and-in
> /etc/speakup/dectlk/ there are settings files for volume, voice, and other
> things Here are a list of files
> caps_start
> caps_stop
> delay_time
> delay_time~
> direct
> flush_time
> full_time
> inflection
> jiffy_delta
> pitch
> punct
> rate
> trigger_time
> voice
> vol
> Back again live, so I think once Speakup were loaded again, any settings within
> those files would resume.