Newsgroups: comp.speech
Path: pavo.csi.cam.ac.uk!warwick!pipex!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!news.umbc.edu!cs.umd.edu!afterlife!jpcampb
From: jpcampb@afterlife.ncsc.mil (Joe Campbell)
Subject: Re: Is there anything Public Domain for the mac?
Message-ID: <1993Nov16.022730.18908@afterlife.ncsc.mil>
Organization: The Great Beyond
References: <2bvvb0$pom@wumpus.cc.uow.edu.au>
Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 02:27:30 GMT
Lines: 144

In article <2bvvb0$pom@wumpus.cc.uow.edu.au>,
Duong Robert <u9264582@wumpus.cc.uow.edu.au> wrote:
>I've rummaged arounf for good text 2 speech stuff for the mac and I'm
>getting no where pretty damn quick looking for Speech Manager and
>Macintalk...can anybody help me?
>
Hi Rob,
Most of the following is in our FAQ, but here goes anyway:


Listing of Speech Manager/MacInTalk Pro/PlainTalk aware applications, 15e
 
Key Words: Speech Manager MacInTalk PlainTalk Gala Tea text to speech TTS
(Display in small monofont, e.g., 9pt Courier)
 
Here are some of the Speech Manager aware text-to-speech (TTS)
applications that I know of (there are more on the Apple Developer
CD-ROMs). If I've missed some, please feel free to add to the list
and also let me know if you disagree with my "Comments." You'll
probably need to increase the memory allocations of Speech Manager
aware applications if you want to use the high quality voices (I
generally add a couple megabytes because the high quality voices
need a lot of RAM). As for some applications (which you'll need to
actually make your Mac talk), the ones I've been playing with follow.
 
Relatively speaking, Apple's Speech Manager, with the high quality
voices, has a synthesized voice quality and pronunciation that are
among the best I've heard (Bellcore's Orator might do better with
proper nouns). Do you agree? Has anyone done formal testing of the
Speech Manager vs other TTS systems?
 
Is there a Speech Manager aware application that allows graphical
specification of pitch and rate trajectories (similar to SoundEdit's
Bender, but on text or phoneme strings rather than the waveform)?
I also seek the MS Word 5 Plug-In-Module and a gizmo to speak the
clipboard/selection. Please let me know if you have any of these.
 
The Speech Manager is available from the Internet via anonymous ftp
to ftp.apple.com in /dts/mac/sys.soft/speech. There are 3 files in
this directory:
 
6273632 Aug 14 22:51 macintalk-pro.hqx
                     PlainTalk Text-To-Speech 1.0 speech synthesizer
                     extension (includes Female Voice, Compressed);
                     TTS Female Voice; TTS Male Voice; and
                     TTS Male Voice, Compressed. Requires 68020 or better!
 
 370108 Aug 13 04:30 speech-manager-docs.hqx
                     Apple DocViewer format (Inside Macintosh style,
                     no installation instructions - just drag everything
                     onto your closed System Folder).
 
 262569 Aug  7 07:01 speech-manager.hqx
                     Speech Manager 1.1.1 (includes Marvin's voice) and
                     MacInTalk Voices 1.1.1 (9 more voices). Runs most Macs.

Some of the following applications require Apple's stdTTS extension (a
standard dialog handler).  It's also on ftp.apple.com:

  /dts/mac/sys.soft/quicktime/sample.code/speech-media-handler.hqx
 
The stdTTS extension is in one of the folders you get when you expand
the file "speech-media-handler.hqx".  Just install it in your extensions
folder and restart.

The Speech Manager can be purchased with System 7 Pro and part of it can
be purchased with At Ease 2.0.

Apple's work in spoken language technologies and systems is described in:
 
Lee, Kai-Fu. "The Conversational Computer: An Apple Perspective."
(Keynote Speech) In Proc. Eurospeech in Berlin, ESCA, September, 1993.
 
Happy talkin'
Joe
.............................................................................
; Dr. Campbell  N3JBC  jpcampb@afterlife.ncsc.mil  74040.305@compuserve.com ;
; My opinions are mine!   Happiness = Reality - Expectations, Click & Clack ;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sources:
AOL = America Online
info-mac = {ftp sumex-aim.stanford.edu, ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu, et al.}
MacWarehouse = (800) 255-6227

Application, etc.  Source            Comments
_________________ ________  _________________________________________________
AddressSpeech     info-mac  4D talking address book (from Speech Pack 2.0)
At Ease 2.0    MacWarehouse Friendly desktop that speaks file names
At Ease 2.0 WG MacWarehouse Friendly desktop that speaks file names
Eliza 3.1            AOL    Talking Eliza (Rogerian psych therapist)
FB speech      Inside Basic Mag, volume 3, no. 6. FutureBasic demo
FB Speech demo Inside Basic Mag, volume 3, no. 7. FutureBasic demo
Fortune 1.1       info-mac  Like a talking UNIX fortune command - slick
Homer 0.92d9  zaphod.ee.pitt.edu  GUI IRC client, assign nicks voices - slick
MacMessage 1.0  FirstClassBBS  Share talking messages/customizable startup
Say               info-mac  MPW Tool which converts standard input to speech
ScriptTools 1.2   info-mac  Write AppleScript scripts to say text messages
Siege Watch 1.01f info-mac  Wryly political speaking clock
SoToSpeak1.0.0b10 info-mac  Two voice conversation (also see Fortune's About)
Speak It!         info-mac  Type in a message and have it spoken
Speaker 1.12      info-mac  Simple text file editor, speaks on <CR>, macros
SpeakTextFiles    info-mac  Can change voice, rate, pitch and modulation
Speecher 1.2.1    info-mac  Customizable word pronunciation/substitution
SpeechManagerdemo info-mac  Command line interface, C source, aka -explorer
Speech Pack 2.0   info-mac  4th Dimension external, add speech to database
SpeechUnitEx      info-mac  Pascal source code for speech in Lab 7
speek-02b         info-mac  Speech XCMD for HyperCard
TalkingClockPro2.0info-mac  AppleScriptable talking clock extension (2.0b0)
TeachText 7.2      AV Mac   Apple's talking TeachText (simple editor w/QT)
Tex-Edit 1.9         AOL    Talking word processor, McSink like, modeming
VoiceDemo 1.0.1   info-mac  Bare bones phrase talker
Welcome!v1.3.1    info-mac  A talking Welcome to Macintosh startup
?                     ?     Talking Plug-In-Module for MS Word 5,
                               experimental, unsupported, buggy, beware!
Speech Rhythms       AOL    A cool text file for one of the above apps:
 
ss  cc cc tt  cc cc cc cc cc cc cc   
ss  cc cc tt  cc cc ra ra ra,,,
 
Here are a few rhythms I came up with.  Drop me a line and let me know how you ll ll ll ll ll like them.
Ken Lacovara (Lacovara@aol.com),,,
 
Bossa Nova,
xx   xx   xx    xx  xx     xx   xx   xx    xx  xx     xx   xx   xx    xx  xx     xx   xx   xx    xx  xx     
 
Conga,
xx     xx     xx    xx       xx     xx     xx    xx       xx     xx     xx    xx       xx     xx     xx    xx       
 
Jazz,
xx   xx  xx xx    xx  xx xx    xx  xx xx  xx xx  xx xx    xx  xx xx    xx  xx xx    xx  xx xx  xx xx  xx xx
 
Rock,
tt      xx  tt      tt   xx  tt      tt   xx  tt   tt   tt   xx     tt      xx  tt      tt   xx  tt      tt   xx  tt   tt   tt   xx
 
Military,
cc cc cc cc cc    cc cc cc cc cc    cc cc cc cc cc    cc    cc    cc cc cc cc cc    cc    cc  cc  cc  cc  cc    cc    cc    
,,,,,
That's ebedee ebedee ebedee ebedee all folks!
pp   pp  pp  pp   pp      pp   pp
-- 
.............................................................................
; Dr. Campbell  N3JBC  jpcampb@afterlife.ncsc.mil  74040.305@compuserve.com ;
; My opinions are mine!   Happiness = Reality - Expectations, Click & Clack ;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
