Text to speech - Vista RC1

[SgtM]

So I'm easily amused. Basically, you type text, the PC reads it back to you. Fun stuff if you're bored, and can't mod.

[AJ@PR]

My brother is blind, and he uses a screen-reader software called JAWS from Freedom Scientific (http://www.freedomscientific.com/fs_products/software_jaws.asp).

Pretty cool. Pretty nifty.
Pretty amazing the patience he and other blind people have.

Now, Vista's software is interesting.
I remember when my brother had a 486 DX (50 MHz !!!!! no heat sink!!!) with a "Dec Talk" card in there. It was, if I'm not mistaken, from DIGITAL (great company).

You'd type-in or import a text file, and it would read it out loud.

Nifty.

[Airbozo]

I found out one day that my phone has this feature. We were waiting for a table at a fancy restaurant and my sister-in-law proceeds to send me an extremely foul text message (and foul is a _real_ understatement), which I then proceed to "play". The whole waiting area erupted into a hearty round of laughter.

Yes that Dec-Talk card was made by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) now owned by Compaq, who is now owned by HP. The technology was invented by IBM _many_ years ago. The problem was that when IBM invented that tech, only large mainframe systems had the horsepower to actually perform the text to speech processing. In the '90's computers started getting to the point that it was feasible to do text to speech synthesis and visa versa.

Steven Hawking's voice box was one of the original designs and over the ages there have been many many improvements to this technology. Mr. Hawking's has so far declined to upgrade, because he feels that is his unique voice and it works for him.

[AJ@PR]

Yes that Dec-Talk card was made by DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation) now owned by Compaq, who is now owned by HP.
THAT's the exact name!
"Dec-Talk"

And, yeah, definitely it was DEC (not "DIGITAL").

This is why it's great to have Airbozo on these boards.... he supplies these uncommon, interesting, yet geekEsque comments that provide the _history_ behind the technology.

Stuff like this interesting thread. (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4517)

Peace!
AJ

[Airbozo]

THAT's the exact name!
"Dec-Talk"

And, yeah, definitely it was DEC (not "DIGITAL").

This is why it's great to have Airbozo on these boards.... he supplies these uncommon, interesting, yet geekEsque comments that provide the _history_ behind the technology.

Stuff like this interesting thread. (http://www.thebestcasescenario.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4517)

Peace!
AJ

Yeah I also seem to "date" myself when I answer some of these questions too. I guess I could do a write up on "core memory"! Hehe I remember when IBM and DEC were the _only_ game in town... MMMMMM vax 11-780, arrrgggghhhhh....