cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) (03/08/90)
In article <48744@coherent.coherent.com> dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes: >Apple is rewriting the Sound Manager for System 7.0, to supply some >long-sought-after features (finally, REAL stereo sound capability!). >... >So... if you buy Talking Moose now, it'll stop working when you >install System 7.0... unless somebody comes up with a complete >reimplementation of Macintalk which is Sound Manager compatible. Are you serious, that System 7 will break Macintalk? It isn't used just by the Moose, you know -- to start with there are quite a number of hypercard stacks that use it, and there must be plenty of "real" applications besides that do. Say it ain't so...?
6600bike@hub.UUCP (Puneet Pasrich) (03/08/90)
From article <3564@infmx.UUCP>, by cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi): >>Apple is rewriting the Sound Manager for System 7.0, to supply some >>long-sought-after features (finally, REAL stereo sound capability!). > Are you serious, that System 7 will break Macintalk? It isn't used > just by the Moose, you know -- to start with there are quite a number > of hypercard stacks that use it, and there must be plenty of "real" > applications besides that do. Say it ain't so...? As far as I know Macintalk was one of the greatest hacks ever put together! According to rumor Apple just received it - with no source code and they have been using it. It's a great hack - and Apple decided that they could do a better hack, eh? -- ___________________________________________________________ |Puneet Pasrich | Internet: 6600bike@ucsbuxa.ucsb.edu | |Karate Kid | Bitnet: 6600bike@ucsbuxa.bitnet | |'Just do it!' | |
erci18@castle.ed.ac.uk (A J Cunningham) (03/09/90)
In article <3564@infmx.UUCP> cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes: >Are you serious, that System 7 will break Macintalk? It isn't used >just by the Moose, you know -- to start with there are quite a number >of hypercard stacks that use it, and there must be plenty of "real" >applications besides that do. Say it ain't so...? It is so. Apple have been telling people not to use MacInTalk in commercial applications for some time now. The product is shipped from Apple with Class 3 support which basically means 'You can play with this yourself but don't expect us to support it'. Tony -- Tony Cunningham, Edinburgh University Computing Service. erci18@castle.ed.ac.uk "If the thunder don't get ya then the lightnin' will."
dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (03/09/90)
In article <3564@infmx.UUCP> cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes: > Are you serious, that System 7 will break Macintalk? It isn't used > just by the Moose, you know -- to start with there are quite a number > of hypercard stacks that use it, and there must be plenty of "real" > applications besides that do. Say it ain't so...? I could say it ain't so, but I'm not Joe Isuzu, and my nose is already quite long enough ;-} I'm afraid that it _is_ so. See Tech Note #268, dated February 1990. It turns out that even Apple doesn't have the source code to the Macintalk driver! It was developed by a third party under contract... the primary purpose was to enable the Macintosh to "introduce itself" at the product rollout in 1984. The contract did not include the rights to the source code... and so Apple cannot now update the driver. Apple has been warning developers for quite some time (years) that Macintalk is utterly unsupported and might not work with future Macintosh hardware or software. The time is upon us, it seems! On the bright side: "Apple is committed to providing the developer community with an array of speech technologies integrated wih the Sound Manager." (Tech Note 268) This suggests that it might be possible for someone to write a speech driver which would [a] use the new Sound Manager speech hooks, whatever they are, and [b] would provide a Macintalk-compatible driver interface. The person who does so, and distributes such a driver for a fair price, will earn many kudos and much good karma! -- Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805 UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@uunet.uu.net USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) (03/09/90)
In article <49013@coherent.coherent.com> dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes: >In article <3564@infmx.UUCP> cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes: >> Are you serious, that System 7 will break Macintalk? It isn't used >> just by the Moose, you know -- to start with there are quite a number >> of hypercard stacks that use it, and there must be plenty of "real" >> applications besides that do. Say it ain't so...? > >I could say it ain't so, but I'm not Joe Isuzu, and my nose is already >quite long enough ;-} > >I'm afraid that it _is_ so. See Tech Note #268, dated February 1990. > >Apple has been warning developers for quite some time (years) that >Macintalk is utterly unsupported and might not work with future >Macintosh hardware or software. The time is upon us, it seems! > >On the bright side: "Apple is committed to providing the developer >community with an array of speech technologies integrated wih the Sound >Manager." (Tech Note 268) This suggests that it might be possible >for someone to write a speech driver which would [a] use the new >Sound Manager speech hooks, whatever they are, and [b] would provide >a Macintalk-compatible driver interface. > Here's another Apple misteak! Before pulling the plug on good ole Macintalk, Apple should instead be rolling out its replacement. Apple has been "committed to providing the developer community with an array of speech technologies" for several years now but has done *nothing!* The fact that this has been cut off without providing for a replacement seems to indicate quite strongly that there is nothing in the channel now and won't be for some time. As a developer who uses it in a commercial product, I've been a one-man lobbyist for a better Macintalk for years. About 90% of the educational software for the Macintosh uses Macintalk. Now Apple says it wants to promote educational software for the Mac -- what better way than to cripple it and have to send it all in for a rewrite? I know, I know, I've already bought a sound digitizer. But this means that all educational software will require a MacPlus or better and about the only thing a <Plus Macintosh is good for is to give it to your kids with some educational software. Last year at Boston MacExpo, an Apple VP for education dropped by my booth to thank me for writing educational software. Where are you now, Apple? Remember here: I'm not pushing for the retention of Macintalk - but for the introduction of a Macintalk Plus (or Macintalk IIxi, if you will) -Owen Owen Hartnett omh@cs.brown.edu.CSNET Brown University Computer Science omh@cs.brown.edu uunet!brunix!omh "Don't wait up for me tonight because I won't be home for a month."
mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) (03/09/90)
In article <32015@brunix.UUCP> omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) writes: > >Here's another Apple misteak! Before pulling the plug on good ole >Macintalk, Apple should instead be rolling out its replacement. >Apple has been "committed to providing the developer community with >an array of speech technologies" for several years now but has done >*nothing!* The fact that this has been cut off without providing for >a replacement seems to indicate quite strongly that there is nothing >in the channel now and won't be for some time. > Apple is not "pulling the plug" on MacinTalk--it has not been supported for years. One must also realize that in order to avoid the same mistake that we have in this case, Apple is not just going to provide some interim sound solution which will again break after another system software release. It is important for Apple, for developers, and most of all the users that we provide a SOLUTION to the problem, not just another problem. Unfortunately, that solution takes a little longer than we would all like. -- Mark B. Johnson AppleLink: mjohnson Developer Technical Support domain: mjohnson@Apple.com Apple Computer, Inc. UUCP: {amdahl,decwrl,sun,unisoft}!apple!mjohnson "You gave your life to become the person you are right now. Was it worth it?" - Richard Bach, _One_
pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) (03/10/90)
In article <39340@apple.Apple.COM> mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) writes: > It is important for Apple, for developers, and most of all the users that > we provide a SOLUTION to the problem, not just another problem. Unfortunately, > that solution takes a little longer than we would all like. Maybe, if Apple are serious about this. I remain skeptical. I am not flaming you, Mark (note my first disclaimer), but Macintalk has been in limbo for half a decade. During that time about half a dozen third parties have done speech hacks. Apple could have acquired any of them and had something functional by now. I infer from their not doing so either apathy or a forked-tongue approach to Macintalk support. I hope I am wrong. Perhaps the perception among those who control is that Macintalk is a fun hack for silly talking meese with little serious possibility, another version of the "we don't need no steenkin' user interface" mentality. However, there are people in the world who do not see very well. Macintalk, along with the ability to make just about any application use large fonts, is a great boon to these people. Apple have been nearly unique among computer manufacturers in their awareness of the existence of disabled people. Look at Easy Access. The people who actually need something like Easy Access are only a tiny minority, and such things are usually overlooked by marketing-driven companies in their perpetual navel-gazing. How much revenue does Easy Access generate? Very little by itself. How much revenue does the attitude that people with special needs are worth considering generate? One hell of a lot, I would guess. Apple have done well on this point. On the other hand, perhaps Easy Access, too, may prove to be nothing more than a relic from the old days when Apple's corporate posterior had not achieved diamond hardness. Trying to integrate a speech synthesizer with the already massively hacked Sound Manager is the wrong approach, especially as it increases the amount of time to do the job. Get the Sound Manager working properly, but in the meantime provide a routine that takes some phonemes and parameters and a sampling rate and returns a handle to a sound sample. I have always been able to play sound samples on the Mac, the amount of memory to hold a single sentence is not going to be a problem to allocate, and my fingers are hardly going to be worn to nubbins from the need to type in one extra toolbox call. That way, even if Apple release Comprehensive Sound Manager Controller Package Version 37 that requires an array of 256 interconnected DSP chips numerically to simulate the electronics in an NE-555 timer, the damn thing will still work. Besides, I can *filter* a sample. The other thing is that I am sure that there are hundreds of people with the ability to disassemble Macintalk and produce something useful, and I bet a few of them would do it for free or shareware, but I doubt anybody is going to do it in light of images of phalanxes of grim Apple lawyers armed with Uzi's. Macintalk is free, completely unsupported, and guaranteed to break within a year. So release it into the public domain. That won't happen, of course--it will probably be kept as a trade secret until the collapse of the universe, and even then the lawyers will probably be working overtime to figure out how to keep control over it in the next one. Pardon the cynicism, but I needed the therapy. Again, I am not flaming those in Apple who voluntarily contribute to the world by being on this newsgroup. Contributions like that and like Macintalk made Apple great. Quite the opposite, I criticize the mindset that judges those kinds of contributions to be without value. I hope my fear that said mindset is swarming over Apple in a giant mindless protoplasmic mass turns out to be dead wrong. Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions. Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.
dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu (Dan Schwarz) (03/10/90)
In article <32015@brunix.UUCP> omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) writes: > >As a developer who uses it in a commercial product, I've been a >one-man lobbyist for a better Macintalk for years. About 90% of >the educational software for the Macintosh uses Macintalk. Now >Apple says it wants to promote educational software for the Mac >-- what better way than to cripple it and have to send it all >in for a rewrite? > >I know, I know, I've already bought a sound digitizer. But this means >that all educational software will require a MacPlus or better and >about the only thing a <Plus Macintosh is good for is to give it to >your kids with some educational software. >-Owen > It's not the end of the world -- remember, no one is saying you HAVE to upgrade educational Mac systems to use System 7.0 - besides, those pre- Mac-Plus systems won't be able to run Sys7 anyway, unless they're seriously souped up with extra RAM and a hard drive. (For that matter, how many Plus systems used in the educational field are equipped with 2MB ram?) Until there is the need to use products that run under System 7.0, and the ability (2MB RAM, 128k ROMs, hard drive) to use them, I suspect most people in educational areas will stick with their old Macs and old Systems. -- | And the men who hold | Dan Schwarz, MB 2926 Brandeis U. | RECYCLE YOUR JUNK| | high places/ Must be | I'NET dan@chaos.cs.brandeis.edu | SUPPORT EARTH DAY| | the ones to start/ |----------------------------------| tradetapes?mailme| | To mould a new reality/ Closer to the heart ... RUSH | FloydRushDeadEtc.|
jordan@Apple.COM (Jordan Mattson) (03/10/90)
Dear Eric - As one of those people that reads the news groups and trys to support people out there, I have to say that messages like yours, backed with venom, talking about an Apple that you do not see day to day make me wonder about the value that people put on my work. Being told that all I am interested is making money and gouging people and raping them does not make me feel welcome or inclined to keep using my own time to support folks. If you would have read the other messages about MacinTalk, you would have known that Apple licensed MacinTalk. We do not own it. We have a license that gives us the right to redistribute it. We do not have the right to disassembly and modify it. To make MacinTalk work on the 020 machines, we had to patch the binary. I know, because I am the product manager that made it happen. Your words are powerful things, and when you spew out venom at us and our work, it makes us wonder why we do it. -- Jordan Mattson UUCP: jordan@apple.apple.com Apple Computer, Inc. CSNET: jordan@apple.CSNET Development Tools Product Management AppleLink: Mattson1 20525 Mariani Avenue, MS 27S Cupertino, CA 95014 408-974-4601 "Joy is the serious business of heaven." C.S. Lewis
omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) (03/10/90)
In article <39340@apple.Apple.COM> mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) writes: >In article <32015@brunix.UUCP> omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett) writes: >> >>Here's another Apple misteak! Before pulling the plug on good ole >>Macintalk, Apple should instead be rolling out its replacement. >>Apple has been "committed to providing the developer community with >>an array of speech technologies" for several years now but has done >>*nothing!* The fact that this has been cut off without providing for >>a replacement seems to indicate quite strongly that there is nothing >>in the channel now and won't be for some time. >> >Apple is not "pulling the plug" on MacinTalk--it has not been supported >for years. Au contraire, unsupported is a little different than "broken." >One must also realize that in order to avoid the same mistake >that we have in this case, Apple is not just going to provide some interim >sound solution which will again break after another system software release. >It is important for Apple, for developers, and most of all the users that >we provide a SOLUTION to the problem, not just another problem. Unfortunately, >that solution takes a little longer than we would all like. I'll make you a deal: if you can state that Apple has at least one engineer actively working on a Macintalk replacement (active being at least one week out of three months), I'll shuddap. It doesn't even have to be a Macintalk replacement, just something that will be a functional substitute. I'm not asking you for a product announcement, merely if research is being done in this area. I realize that it takes long to develop new technologies, and that priorities have to be made, but, IMHO, valid speech technology is more in keeping with the original spirit of the Macintosh than many of the features of System 7.0. -Owen Owen Hartnett omh@cs.brown.edu.CSNET Brown University Computer Science omh@cs.brown.edu uunet!brunix!omh "Don't wait up for me tonight because I won't be home for a month."
siegel@endor.harvard.edu (Rich Siegel) (03/12/90)
In article <39364@apple.Apple.COM> jordan@Apple.COM (Jordan Mattson) writes: >Dear Eric - > As one of those people that reads the news groups and trys to support people >out there, I have to say that messages like yours, backed with venom, talking >about an Apple that you do not see day to day make me wonder about the >value that people put on my work. > Being told that all I am interested is making money and gouging people and >raping them does not make me feel welcome or inclined to keep using my own >time to support folks. Indeed. As a company employee who takes his own time to follow the nets and answer questions, and who doesn't get any compensation (except for the gratitude of those whom he helps), I feek for what Jordan is saying, and would like to encourage people who would flame to have a little ordinary consideration. To not agree with something a company does is one thing, but to blast the unofficial representatives of that company for something that they have little control over is quite another. R. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Rich Siegel Staff Software Developer Symantec Corporation, Language Products Group Internet: siegel@endor.harvard.edu UUCP: ..harvard!endor!siegel "When someone who makes four hundred and fifty dollars an hour wants to tell you something for free, it's a good idea to listen." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu (Eric Pepke) (03/13/90)
I apologize to the rest of the net for the essentially personal open
letter nature of this posting, and in my defense can only say that I was
responding to that kind of posting.
Dear Jordan,
It is unfortunate that you thought that I was spewing venom at you. I
appreciate your politeness in telling me so, and I will try to return the
compliment. I was not attempting to spew venom, and I stated that fact not
once, but twice. I am of the personal opinion that Apple has done most of
the Good Things in the computer industry and also that without excption
everyone who has contributed to this network is part of that. In
particular, I think that awareness of some people's special needs to serve
a very small minority of people is excellent and should be commended.
Of course, there is a problem in that there is a natural human tendency to
speak only when something goes wrong, and there is an equally natural
human tendency to remember criticism more intensely than praise. You
yourself might, even now, be hard pressed to remember the dozens of times
I have praised Apple for something. Add to that the fact that my style
does rankle some people, although I try to express general frustrations in
large and ridiculous metaphors, and I try to state at the beginning and
the end that no flame is intended. So, I understand how you may have
taken offense and may have been frustrated. Please reread my posting and
try to understand why I am frustrated. There is valid criticism hidden in
there somewhere. You say my words are powerful. Please grant my
explanations that I am not trying to flame anybody the same power as the
rest.
Also, please give some thought to another frustration of mine. Apple is a
fairly big company. Left hands don't neccesarily know what right hands
are doing, nor should they. I think that most of the people who watch
this net understand that. However, sometimes criticism of some of the
things that are done or not done gets lively. No, I don't see Apple day
by day, and sometimes, therefore, I don't know the source of the problem
to criticise. I generally assume that such sources are hard to track down
but that the first step in doing so is recognizing that there is a
problem. Often, when there is some serious criticism of Apple, whether
expressed harshly or not, there is one person who works at Apple and, in
spite of disclaimers, takes it to heart, takes it personally. This most
recently happened with the bit about the Microsoft suit. I can understand
how this happens, but please try to understand the effects. It tends to
belie the disclaimers and tends to turn this newsgroup into something like
AppleLink, with the world divided into Apple people and non-Apple people.
This would be a bad thing, because one of the great strengths of this
group is that it is informal, that Apple employees do not post _qua_ Apple
employees. As happened with the Microsoft suit, the us-vs.-them, take it
all to heart stuff tended to obscure the real message, that of what us
ordinary po' folk thought about it.
The other disadvantage is the fact that somebody is bound to take offense
at a remark tends to increase the frustration threshold for posting.
Also, it works. I received an Email to the effect that my posting had
been brought to the attention of developers. This is, by far, the most
fantastically fast response I have ever gotten to anything I have ever
brought up, here, through a mediary on AppleLink, or elsewhere! And I
thought I was just blowing off steam!
You're right. I don't see Apple day to day. On the other hand, you may
not see the end users that I see day to day. You may not see the teachers
who have fought loyally for Macintoshes for half a decade and are scared
that their software will break if they upgrade and only see phrases like
"not supported" and "we are committed to providing." You may not see the
leader of a major GUI project who says that Apple has become just as bad
as [another company, whose three initials spell out a scatological
comment]. You may not see the worries about the management shakeup,
especially in light of many recent statements to the effect that there is
no reason to assume that Gasse would resign, a couple of weeks before he
did. Hey, I don't see them day to day either, but I do see them
sometimes, and I listen. Sometimes I try to assuage their fears, for the
sole reason that I think that Macintoshes are still insanely great.
I have one final though for you. IMHO, people tend to criticize in an
escalating scale, like this:
1) Criticize politely
2) Criticize nastily
3) Criticize coldly and without emotion, using their wallets
Jordan, if you would like to discuss this further, I can be reached by Email.
Honest, I don't think that either you personally or Apple in general is the
Great Satan. Now that the surface tension is broken, I can be more courteous.
for (;;)
{
printf("Possible inferences notwithstanding, nothing\n");
printf("in this posting is intended to offend.\n");
}
Eric Pepke INTERNET: pepke@gw.scri.fsu.edu
Supercomputer Computations Research Institute MFENET: pepke@fsu
Florida State University SPAN: scri::pepke
Tallahassee, FL 32306-4052 BITNET: pepke@fsu
Disclaimer: My employers seldom even LISTEN to my opinions.
Meta-disclaimer: Any society that needs disclaimers has too many lawyers.hildreth@cg-atla.agfa.com (Lon Hildreth) (03/14/90)
In article <39340@apple.Apple.COM> mjohnson@Apple.COM (Mark B. Johnson) writes: >Apple is not "pulling the plug" on MacinTalk--it has not been supported >for years. One must also realize that in order to avoid the same mistake >that we have in this case, Apple is not just going to provide some interim >sound solution which will again break after another system software release. >It is important for Apple, for developers, and most of all the users that >we provide a SOLUTION to the problem, not just another problem. Unfortunately, >that solution takes a little longer than we would all like. > Does this imply that someone at Apple is actually working on a solution other than "Don't use MacInTalk"? It strikes me that there is a lot of interest in speech synthesis capability on the Mac by both developers and users. In some cases, digitized speech can be used, but in many cases there are just too many possibilities to make effective use of digitized speech. Synthesized speech takes up far less disk space and is much more flexible in what it can say. -- Lon Hildreth ...!{decvax,uunet,samsung}!cg-atla!hildreth Agfa Compugraphic or hildreth@cg-atla.agfa.com Wilmington, MA A Cub fan, but not a Bud man.
ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) (03/15/90)
I've followed this thread about Macintalk for a few days now and think
that its gotton out of hand. My personal opinion is that if Macintalk
dies under System 7, so much the better. Macintalk was so crude and
hard to listen to and was of such poor quality, I find it strange that
everyone is defending with such fervor, a piece of software that is not
worth it. To me the demise of Macintalk is a good thing, it will allow
either the third party, or Apple to eventually create something better,
and until that comes along, I can live without it quite nicely...
--
Norm Goodger SysOp - MacInfo BBS @415-795-8862
3Com Corp. Co-SysOp FreeSoft RT - GEnie.
Enterprise Systems Division (I disclaim anything and everything)
UUCP: {3comvax,auspex,sun}!bridge2!ngg Internet: ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COMmatherr@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Ross M Mather) (03/15/90)
In article <1417@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM> ngg@bridge2.ESD.3Com.COM (Norman Goodger) writes: > > I've followed this thread about Macintalk for a few days now and think > that its gotton out of hand. Why ? Because some people want to discuss product evolution or lack of it ? > My personal opinion is that if Macintalk > dies under System 7, so much the better. Macintalk was so crude and > hard to listen to and was of such poor quality, I find it strange that > everyone is defending with such fervor, a piece of software that is not > worth it. Well that's your personal opionon, but that of a good many other people that Macintalk should have been kept going until such time as a suitable enhancement was available from Apple. > To me the demise of Macintalk is a good thing, it will allow > either the third party, or Apple to eventually create something better, > and until that comes along, I can live without it quite nicely... Well thats very nice. But there are a whole host of Macintosh users out there that use Macintalk a lot. Macintalk is the one speech driver the Mac has and it is useful for a whole host of tasks. Not least amongst these is for software used be PreSchool age children, who usually can't read. They don't seem to have too much problem following it. The handicapped are another example (especiallt with Easy Access available) again where people may have trouble reading. Macintalk could not claim to be the world's greatest Speech Synthesiser, but lets face it, for 1985 it's a [retty advanced item. Heck most computers about still can't produce Macintalk quality speech. Yes Apple needs to improve it, but that doesn't mean that people can't use the net to try to make sure that Apple does. I'm a developer & I'm using Macintalk in the development of PreSchool Educational Software and it's a god send. Yes it's not compatible with all machines and it's not got the worlds nicest accent, but it is useful. Ross -- * USEnet : matherr!glasgow!mcsun!... | Senior Honours,Comp. Sci. Dept. * * ARPAnet : matherr@cs.glasgow.ac.uk | University Of Glasgow, Scotland. * * From USA : matherr%cs.glasgow.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk * * If I hadn't want it heard I wouldn't have said it - Klingon Proverb *