bskendig@dry.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) (01/10/91)
In article <1991Jan10.014721.5168@Neon.Stanford.EDU> torrie@cs.stanford.edu (Evan J Torrie) writes: >HMPQC@CUNYVM.BITNET writes: >>Apple also said that MacinTalk would never be supported again (Tech Note 268) >>but now there's version 2.0, so whom are we to believe? > > Can someone in the know please explain what is different between Macintalk >1.31 and 2.0? Now, hang on a minute, here. Here's the story, as I know it. Way back when, when the original Macs came out, Apple hired an independent firm to make a speech synthesizer for them. This synthesis program was Macintalk, and Apple didn't get the source code for it. (Wasn't in the deal.) Now, Macintalk played some games with the Sound Manager that Apple simply decided they could no longer support while still making the Sound Manager small, fast, and powerful. As a result, Macintalk should stop working any day now; it's just good fortune that keeps it from crashing your machine. Remember, it was made back when the Mac Plus was the top-of-the-line machine, I believe, and how much software like that will still run and behave itself on a IIfx? When the Mac II was introduced, Macintalk gave it some problems, so some kind soul apparently dug around in the machine code of the program and tinkered with some things that got it to work properly. I think this is what's called `1.31'; I don't believe the original had any version number on it. (But don't go by what numbers your copy does or doesn't have to decide what it really is; people have been known to fiddle with the version numbers themselves, and since there's no such thing as an `original disk' of Macintalk to refer to...) Macintalk has not bee upgraded. When someone hinted that it wouldn't work with System 7 last fall on the net, there was a great hue and cry, and Apple engineers admitted that they simply didn't have any source code they could look at to update the thing, and they had neither the resources nor the interest just now to reverse-engineer it or redo it from scratch. As for this `2.0' version, since there's no conceivable way that Apple could or would have updated the speech driver without someone here knowing (unless all the Apple people here are bloody liars ;), is probably a version `1.31' with the `vers' resource updated by someone wishing to create a stir (and succeeding, too). Think. If you had just finished a major update to a really neat piece of software, would you package it woth something else shareware on a pay-modem service and tell your employees not to greathe a word of it in public? :) Of course, since I don't work for Apple, all of what I've said may be a complete and shameful untruth based on misinformation. But, on the other hand, it might be correct enough to make some recruiter at Apple say "That boy knows something! Let's hire him and pay him dozens of thousands of dollars every year to change the version numbers on our System 7 stuff to `8.0'!" Maybe? << Brian >> | Brian S. Kendig \ Macintosh | Engineering, | bskendig | | Computer Engineering |\ Thought | USS Enterprise | @phoenix.Princeton.EDU | Princeton University |_\ Police | -= NCC-1701-D =- | @PUCC.BITNET | "It's not that I don't have the work to *do* -- I don't do the work I *have*."
bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) (01/10/91)
From article <5152@idunno.Princeton.EDU>, by bskendig@dry.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig): > from crashing your machine. Remember, it was made back when the Mac > Plus was the top-of-the-line machine, I believe, and how much software > like that will still run and behave itself on a IIfx? Apple ads would have you believe that everything that's ever run on any Macintosh will still run on every Macintosh... > As for this `2.0' version, since there's no conceivable way that Apple > could or would have updated the speech driver without someone here > knowing (unless all the Apple people here are bloody liars ;), is > probably a version `1.31' with the `vers' resource updated by someone > wishing to create a stir (and succeeding, too). Well, I've now received 2.0, so after reading this I decided to poke around in 1.31 and 2.0 with ResEdit. Here's what I found: 1.31 2.0 rsrc num size rsrc num size DRVR 20 19310 DRVR 31 19310 RULZ 129 8253 RULZ 129 6922 RULZ 2129 7050 TALK 1 1626 TALK 1 1626 STR 14 says 1.31, 6/29/87 STR 14 says 2.0, 6/29/87 and has name P. Mercer and has name G. Kearney no vers resource vers 1 and 2 present, both say version 2.0, date 1988/1989 and have name G. Kearney The driver code appears to be the same in that you can lock your machine instantly in the same way: set the system beep to something other than "Simple beep" (e.g., Monkey), make your machine say something, then do something that will cause a beep (click outside an alert, say). Voila, frozen Macintosh. (This is true on my IIsi, at least.) Why are there two RULZ resources, though? -- Paul DuBois dubois@primate.wisc.edu
bin@primate.wisc.edu (Brain in Neutral) (01/10/91)
I should point out too that "2.0" also has the problem then if you move the mouse around while the Macintosh is talking, you still get the "static"-y sound in the speeck. -- Paul DuBois dubois@primate.wisc.edu
francis@uchicago.edu (Francis Stracke) (01/11/91)
Has anybody considered producing a new speech synthesizer using the Macintalk interface? Yes, it would be a hell of a job, & I'm certainly not volunteering, but it seems that somebody could make some money off it, no? -- ============================================================================== | Francis Stracke | My opinions are my own. I don't steal them.| | Department of Mathematics |=============================================| | University of Chicago | Until you stalk and overrun, | | francis@zaphod.uchicago.edu | you can't devour anyone. -- Hobbes | ==============================================================================
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (01/11/91)
In article <5152@idunno.Princeton.EDU> bskendig@dry.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes: > >Now, hang on a minute, here. > >Here's the story, as I know it. Way back when, when the original Macs >came out, Apple hired an independent firm to make a speech synthesizer >for them. This synthesis program was Macintalk, and Apple didn't get >the source code for it. (Wasn't in the deal.) > >Now, Macintalk played some games with the Sound Manager that Apple >simply decided they could no longer support while still making the >Sound Manager small, fast, and powerful. As a result, Macintalk >should stop working any day now; it's just good fortune that keeps it >from crashing your machine. Remember, it was made back when the Mac >Plus was the top-of-the-line machine, I believe, and how much software >like that will still run and behave itself on a IIfx? Mac Plus? Mac Plus? Sorry... it was in the original software supplement, which puts it at LEAST as far back as the original Mac 128.... -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.
laird@chinet.chi.il.us (Laird J. Heal) (01/13/91)
In article <1991Jan11.025856.10786@eng.umd.edu> russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) writes: >In article <5152@idunno.Princeton.EDU> bskendig@dry.Princeton.EDU (Brian Kendig) writes: >> >>Now, hang on a minute, here. >> >>Here's the story, as I know it. Way back when, when the original Macs >>came out, Apple hired an independent firm to make a speech synthesizer >>for them. This synthesis program was Macintalk, and Apple didn't get >>the source code for it. (Wasn't in the deal.) >> >> [...] Remember, it was made back when the Mac >>Plus was the top-of-the-line machine, I believe, and how much software >>like that will still run and behave itself on a IIfx? >Mac Plus? Mac Plus? Sorry... it was in the original software supplement, >which puts it at LEAST as far back as the original Mac 128.... Yes, it has been made clear both here and in print (and perhaps in a recent Tech Note) that Macintalk was the original hack used at the January 1984 stockholders' meeting rolling out the Macintosh and Lisa 2/10. Steve Jobs, it is said, wanted to be able to synthesize speech on the computer and send it out for all the owners to hear. I have not read here that the original licensing agreement allowed Apple to distribute Macintalk, but, being in possession of the binaries they did so, and at least one developer has commented here that when Apple asked for a source license they basically demanded more than Apple would pay, possibly at least partly because Apple had distributed Macintalk so widely. Apple probably lost money on every copy they ever shipped, due to the low cost of their Software Supplements and a very low cost for software licenses. In the early days of the Macintosh, the cheapest way to get diskettes was to order the Software Supplement, as long as you were willing to wait a fairly long time for delivery...let's see, $100 or $150 and I must have received 50 diskettes at a time when they were _four_dollars_each_ retail. (striking head with fist) of course I only ordered one set and copied them like a good user should, but I should just have ordered a second set since I paid more for the backups than the originals! There used to be a certain idolatry about the "100-days Macintoshes" which were the first 128K Macs shipped. This is not the vogue any more since all of the new models have far outstripped the originals. I remember one client of mine had a pre-release 128K Macintosh (still with the released 64K "V7"(?) ROMs) which featured a mouse whose cable had no thumbscrews, just a couple of clips like the Lisa 2 friction-fit mouses but with an L-shaped end so the cable could come to no harm if the computer were set with its back flush against a wall. -- Laird J. Heal The Usenet is dead! Here: laird@chinet.chi.il.us Long Live the Usenet!
gourdol@imag.imag.fr (Arnaud Gourdol) (01/14/91)
>Mac Plus? Mac Plus? Sorry... it was in the original software supplement, >which puts it at LEAST as far back as the original Mac 128.... >-- >Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu > .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus. Yes, quite right, Macintalk is a very ancient piece of software. Its first public use was on January 24, 1984, when the Mac was uweiled to the world. Steve Jobs insisted that the Mac should express himself. So it did. One of the now famous sentence he said was: "Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift" (This now applies to the Mac II line) Arnaud.
russotto@eng.umd.edu (Matthew T. Russotto) (01/15/91)
In article <17047@imag.imag.fr> gourdol@imag.imag.fr (Arnaud Gourdol) writes: > >Steve Jobs insisted that the Mac should express himself. So it did. One of the >now famous sentence he said was: > >"Never trust a computer bigger than you can lift" > >(This now applies to the Mac II line) Why? I can lift my Mac II. And the IIcx, IIci, and IIsi are arguably easier to lift than the Toaster Macs. -- Matthew T. Russotto russotto@eng.umd.edu russotto@wam.umd.edu .sig under construction, like the rest of this campus.