Newsgroups: comp.speech
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From: minow@apple.com (Martin Minow)
Subject: Re: Is anybody using DEC TALK ?
Sender: news@gallant.apple.com
Message-ID: <minow-2112941925140001@17.130.21.87>
Date: Thu, 22 Dec 1994 03:25:14 GMT
References: <cheema.786961471@nntp.msstate.edu> <irmurray.154.2EEEFEBD@its.dundee.ac.uk>
Organization: Apple Computer Inc.
Lines: 40

In article <irmurray.154.2EEEFEBD@its.dundee.ac.uk>, irmurray@its.dundee.ac.uk
(IAIN MURRAY) wrote:

> ... The fact it's still selling with essentially the same voice 
> after 10 years says it all - it's the best there is!
> 

Thanks for the kind words (though they really need to be directed at Dennis
Klatt, who was the person responsible for DecTalk's voice quality and Tony
Vitale, the linguist responsible for the letter-to-phoneme transformation.

> bar@mmsrv.zko.dec.com (Bernie Rozmovits) writes:

>>DECtalk software does not answer phones.  ...

> Hmm.... Then what is the software that answers the phone ? 

The original DECTalk demo (508) 493-TALK (I wrote it) used a stock DECtalk
and a Pro 350 with a brief message. Hmm, actually the very first demo ran
on a prototype and all the software was on the board, but that was to prove
that the software worked. At the time I left the DECtalk group, the demo
ran on a DECtalk 3 (single board that plugged into a modem carrier) and a VMS
program. DECTalk and DECTalk 3 had full telephone interface capabilities:
they could both initiate and answer calls. I'm not sure about the later
variants.

What I believe Dec is now selling is the software engine (there has been a
fair amount of progress in single-chip microcomputers in the past ten years).
I'm not certain how the vocal tract model is generated: the original DECtalk's
used a TI DSP to generate the waveform, with a 68000 (DECTalk) or 80186
(DECTalk 3)
handling the text to synthesizer command translation. The vocal tract model is
probably within the reach of a low-end Risc (or Pentium) and, apparently,
a 486-style box.

I just got an original DECTalk as a birthday present, so perhaps I'll put up
a demo on my home phone!

Martin Minow (ex-DECTalk developer)
minow@apple.com
