[DECtalk] Report of a successful use of dectalk with graphical Linux.

[Piotr Machacz]

The biggest showstopper with BNS emulation right now is probably the fact we don't have the speech chip emulated. The BNS itself was Z80-based which is a very popular CPU of those times, but neither the Votrax SC02/Artek SSI215 nor the RC systems chip in later units are emulated. Mame only recently made some progress in emulating the previous generation of Votrax - the SC01 because it was used in a lot of arcade games, but the speech is still nearly unintelligible. If there's any further progress made on that or more importantly the SC02 then we can talk blazie note taker emulation.

> On 22 Feb 2023, at 19:28, Brandon Misch <bmisch2002 at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> that's interesting that he said he didn't care if someone tried to
> build something out of the braille'n speak. would be interesting if
> that synthesizer was available for those who grew up with it and liked
> it. lol but seriously, would be cool. Speaking of something festival
> kind of sounds like double talk and I don't see randy of rc systems
> going after those folks. Just an observation.
> 
> On 2/22/23, joshknnd1982 at gmail.com <joshknnd1982 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> And you do realise the only people who care about decTalk anymore is a very
>> very small subset of the blind community? You do know that Microsoft
>> released the windows 3.1 file explorer on the Microsoft store for free and
>> they open sourced it. and you do know that decTalk is 40 years old right?
>> Stop! Just stop with all this legal paranoia garbage! Because that's what it
>> is. Legal paranoia! The big bad decTalk companies are gunna rise from the
>> grave just to sue some blind people for compiling and using decTalk with
>> their screen reader on android and they're gunna sue us even more for using
>> it to play Jim Kitchen's nfl football and press your luck audio games. And I
>> guess the nfl better go after Jim Kitchen's family since Jim Kitchen has
>> passed away they better go after his family because Jim Kitchen used
>> copyrighted playstation sounds in some of his audio games. I guess we blind
>> folks better be careful... One wrong move, one of these days we'll be
>> sitting here playing Jim Kitch!
>> en's   nfl football and the FBI will be knocking at the door taking away
>> all our money to pay the nfl and sony for the use of those sounds in his
>> games. Oh please! Give me a break already! You see I can play the legal
>> paranoia game also. And don't forget about the people who made the new
>> espeak variants like bobby and betty. You know they sound identical to
>> decTalk voices when they read talk or say stuff. Those 70 or so year old
>> decTalk employees will be coming out of the woodwork any day now to collect
>> their huge sums of money. After all, how dare you make espeak variants which
>> are copying our decTalk names and formant algorithms!! Yep, legal paranoia.
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Dectalk <dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com> On Behalf Of Kyle via
>> Dectalk
>> Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 12:31
>> To: DECtalk <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
>> Cc: Kyle <kyle at free2.ml>
>> Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Report of a successful use of dectalk with graphical
>> Linux.
>> 
>> Josh Kennedy tapped out:
>>> That would be like asking  Deane blazey who is around 78 years old if
>>> I can make a new Braille and speak. I don't even have to ask him
>>> because I know what he's going to say. He's going to say I don't care
>>> do whatever the heck you want.
>> 
>> 
>> tl;dr, this is a bit of a grey area in copyright law, as the software may or
>> may not be considered abandonware, so a statement of permission in a
>> LICENSE, COPYING or similar file will go a long way toward addressing any
>> legal concerns.
>> 
>> 
>> There actually is a provision for this in copyright law I think, especially
>> as it relates to abandoned computer software, games, hardware specs, etc.
>> This is referred to as abandonware, and it is how many emulators work, such
>> as our beloved Apple //e MESS/MAME machine. Still, in most cases, the
>> company behind the software or hardware spec makes a statement indicating
>> that the product in question is in fact abandoned.
>> The tricky thing with DECTalk is that it builds and runs natively, and the
>> source code can be built into executable binary code that works without an
>> emulator. There's also the fact that some of the original developers appear
>> to be working on the code, making it technically no longer abandoned, at
>> least not by its developers. In this case, I believe the request for
>> permission still lies with whoever now holds the copyright, whether the
>> developers currently working on it or whoever or whatever the company became
>> once it dissolved if in fact it did.
>> 
>> ~Kyle
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dectalk mailing list
>> Dectalk at bluegrasspals.com
>> https://bluegrasspals.com/mailman/listinfo/dectalk
>> 
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> Dectalk mailing list
>> Dectalk at bluegrasspals.com
>> https://bluegrasspals.com/mailman/listinfo/dectalk
>> 
> _______________________________________________
> Dectalk mailing list
> Dectalk at bluegrasspals.com
> https://bluegrasspals.com/mailman/listinfo/dectalk