Talk:DECtalk

Stephen Hawking connections

This is what MC Hawkings invented. LOL

? Nil Einne 16:30, 26 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, Steven Hawking's original voice was NOT DECTalk, but Telesensory/Speech Plus's Prose 2000 version 1.0. The voice is literally indistinguishable from DECTalk's "Perfect Paul" preset, because both were based on the same KlattTalk/MITalk code. "Perfect Paul" was the only MITalk/KlattTalk/DECTalk voice at first.

How did this happen? Dennis Klatt was in talks with DEC in 1979 to sell his KlattTalk technology to them, but while in final negotiations, he was approached by Telesensory Inc. about licensing his KlattTalk engine for use in their 'OVATOR'? (not sure I have this right) scanner/reader product, to replace an inferior Votrax VSA?(not sure of model but it could have been any of the early VS<letter> series which had an mc6800 on board)-based unlimited text to speech engine card/board. So, Klatt side-licensed his code to them before he was locked into his exclusive deal with DEC. A fact which DEC was not too pleased with but couldn't do much about. Telesensory used his code for the ovator?, for the kurzweil-branded but partly TSI-designed 'Kurzweil reading machine', and for their first standalone text to speech module, the 'Prose 2000'. The code is actually different from KlattTalk/DECTalk because the speech front-end engine (the most complex part, which parses the sentences and words) was vastly stripped down so it could run on an Intel 8086. The middle end engine (which generates speech paramaters) and the back end engine (which renders the speech, and is known as KLSYN if you google it) are both the same or nearly the same as DECTalk's engine, and hence the output voice is indistinguishable. Telesensory/TSI later split their text to speech division off as another company called 'Speech Plus' (named after the first Telesensory Talking Product, the 1975/6 'Speech+' Talking calculator), which marketed the Prose 2000, a non-raw-pcb version of it called the prose 2020, and improved upon the engine. Later versions of the Prose 2000 engine (3.0, for instance) do not sound very much like DECTalk's Perfect Paul at all. Lord Nightmare 01:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Stephen Hawking Former User?

This page says Hawking is a former user of DecTalk, however Hawkings page says he still uses it, both can't be right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.103.121.220 (talk) 11:14, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

The deal with Stephen Hawking and DECtalk

Edward Bruckert has been the head of the engineering side of the DECtalk team since Dennis Klatt's death. I recently spoke with him to clarify the case and Stephen Hawking uses the Speech Plus hardware when he has access to his chair such as at home or when giving large planned lectures. However when he does not have access to his specific wheelchair with mountings for the hardware such as behind airport security he uses a laptop with a heavily modified version of DECtalk that was developed specifically for him to sound as close to the old sound as possible. It's a matter of convenience, but in most circumstances he uses the Speech Plus since that is his voice at this point. 71.232.90.232 (talk) 05:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)

Literatur (Klatt,Dennis: How Klattalk became DECtalk) not avaivable

Hi Guys, the publication by Klatt is very often mentioned in Wikipedia and Google but I tried to find it in SpeechTech. There is no SpeechTech avaivable in Paper. So could anybody tell me or show me where I can read that publication? It seems to be in Bielefeld... and you guys know: it doesnt exist ;)

EASYNET Conference / Stevie Wonder

I don't suppose any former DECcies managed to grab a copy of the old DECTALK eastnet conference did they? One of the interesting threads on there last time I read it (which was about 1993) was about how one of the original DECtalk projects was a system to read out Stevie Wonder's paper-mail for him. If nothing else this would be an amusing bit for the main Wikipedia article. Lawrie (talk) 19:42, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

A cat for scale

=))

Isn't a banana typically used for scale in images? Also, please remember to sign your posts. Ahroun (talk) 20:29, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

It's really hard to get a banana to sit still. Andy Dingley (talk) 21:16, 9 April 2016 (UTC)

Why no entry for Dennis Klatt?

I just edit update articles and haven't created new ones, but was surprised at no article for Klatt who is more significant than many other people with articles (that I appreciate being able to lookup). Letting the community weigh in, I offer these references for him:

his bio for memorial fund: http://www.ashfoundation.org/donations/klatt_fund/

his bio in IEEExplore on page 442: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=1162851

his obit at Karger: http://www.karger.com/Article/PDF/261833

obit in MIT RLE Currents: http://www.rle.mit.edu/media/currents/2-2.pdf

birth March 31, 1938, in Milwaukee, Wisc. Mass death index

died December 30, 1988, in Cambridge, Massachusetts two sources above but december 15, 1988 by SS death index, Mulp (talk) 23:35, 5 October 2015 (UTC)

Sound?

--Error (talk) 01:23, 4 April 2018 (UTC)

Done. Morn (talk) 11:43, 4 April 2019 (UTC)

Picture with cat

With the module on a lawn. I don't think this looks very professional. 57.135.233.22 (talk) 19:23, 2 March 2024 (UTC)