bskendig@phoenix.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) (03/09/90)
I think it's ludicrous that Macintalk will no longer be a part of the
Macintosh, come System 7.
My very first computer -- a TI 99/4A -- had a small box plugged into
the side of it, which served to give it much the same speech
capability as a Speak 'n' Spell toy: very clear and understandable,
even supporting inflection of words.
My next computer, a Commodore 64 (well, a 128 that had delusions of
being a 64), ran a program called "SAM" (the Software-Activated Mouth)
that not only spoke clearly (with a slight Irish accent, I think) and
with inflection, but could also sing. One of the demo programs it
came with had it crooning "Oh Say Can You See". You could also use it
very easily to add speech to programs you wrote, and I seem to
remember a hack someone did that got it to add speech to the text
adventure Zork.
A few years ago, I moved up to the Macintosh. Shortly after I got it,
I came upon Macintalk, and had a lot of fun with such programs such as
"Welcome2", the "Talking Moose", and (later) "HyperMacinTalk". As a
matter of fact, I designed a HyperCard program for NASA a while back
to show off their new space station, and the use of MacinTalk was a
serious consideration for a while. (It was finally ruled out because
the `computery sound' might scare off some technophobic users.
All this time I've been waiting eagerly for an upgrade of MacinTalk...
... only now to find that there won't BE any upgrade!
In my humble opinion, this is a step backwards. Why is it that my TI
and my Commodore both spoke English well, while speech is a
soon-to-be-gone and badly-supported option on the Mac, and nonexistent
on the NeXT?
(Come to think of it, the TI and the Commodore had 16 colors, too,
while I'm limited to four greys on the NeXT and just black 'n' white
on the Mac... but that's another story entirely.)
So, my questions:
Is there any way that Apple can be persuaded to revamp MacinTalk for
System 7?
Are there any developers out there who would be willing to achieve
instant fame and fortune by either revamping MacinTalk, or by creating
a new (compatible?) speech synthesizer program for the Mac?
Is there any good source code out there to start with so that I could
try to hack something up myself?
Eagerly awaiting a reply...
<< Brian >>
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