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

Wed Feb 22 13:57:35 EST 2023

I heard its extremely difficult to emulate hardware speech chips. 

-----Original Message-----
From: Dectalk <dectalk-bounces at bluegrasspals.com> On Behalf Of Piotr Machacz
Sent: Wednesday, February 22, 2023 13:46
To: DECtalk <dectalk at bluegrasspals.com>
Subject: Re: [DECtalk] Report of a successful use of dectalk with graphical
Linux.

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
>> 
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