a48@mindlink.UUCP (Ullrich Fischer) (12/30/90)
I've just got a Sound Blaster card for my XT. It works as advertised. I'm very impressed with its capabilities especially at the price ($189.99 at Future Shop). However, the manual that comes with it basically gives you just enough information to run the demo programs that come with it. They want another $100 US for the Developer's Kit which presumeably gives you the whole story. Are there any text files / shareware programs around which give more details/capabilities? Does anyone know of any deals to be had on the Developer's kit? Is it only available from Creative Labs Inc? The Talking Parrot is great (it even works fine on my V20 enhanced 8Mhz XT despite the note in the manual which says it won't work well on an XT). The VOXKIT voice digitizer works well even using a bottom of the line (and barrel) microphone which was rolling around under some junk on the floor of my garage for several years. The SBTALKER facility, however leaves a lot to be desired. I used it to read a downloaded file of a bunch of MINDLINK messages to me out loud. While the SAY program is much superior to the shareware SAY for the built-in PC speaker which has been floating around as shareware for a few years, it suffers from a lot of pronounciation deficits. For words it 'knows', the pronounciation is fine, but when it tries to pronounce things like 'Msg-id:', it's quite hard to follow unless you read along with it. Also if SAY comes across a word it 'knows' but in all CAPS, it spells it rather than just saying it. Also it wastes a lot of time saying things like 'open paren' and 'greater than' when it comes across these symbols. It would be really nice to be able to modify SAY's internal tables so that it pronounces capitalized words, puts in little clicks and whistles for special characters rather than saying the name of the character (like Victor Borge's punctuation-included speech system where he makes little farting noises (should I be saying 'f**ting' to avoid the bad-word police? :} ) for colon and other appropriate noises for the other punctuation marks). It would also be great to be able to speed up the rate at which it reads. I would like to be able to expand the list of 'known' words/syllables. Currently it pronounces 'misleading' as if the 'isl' belonged in the word 'island'. The FMORGAN program gives a neat PC-keyboard organ (or if you buy the MIDI connector, you can use a MIDI keyboard) but apparently with just one voice controlled from the keyboard. You can't seem to do chords other than the ones supplied automatically by the accompaniment. The Dr SBAITSO program is suspiciously like the old LISA program which has been around since the days of S-100 bus homebrew 8080 PCs and on mainframes before that. The only difference seems to be that it speaks the words as it displays them on the screen. Other than that its just the old LISA non-committal, not-really-paying-attention psychiatrist program. VOXKIT and FMORGAN seem to work fine on a HERC monitor but the Talking Parrot and Dr. SBAITSO both require at least a CGA. If you have a VGA, these programs need to run as EGA. If anyone knows of any goodies available for this great board, I'd like to hear of them. e-Mail would be appreciated since I don't get time to read all these groups all the time. (Maybe if this SAY program can be speeded up and streamlined as noted above, I'll be able to listen to more messages while I'm doing other things) -- Thanks. -uf -- --- Ullrich Fischer phone (604) 684 9371 Vancouver, BC, Canada ---
ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (E. Teng Ong) (12/30/90)
From article <4268@mindlink.UUCP>, by a48@mindlink.UUCP (Ullrich Fischer): > I've just got a Sound Blaster card for my XT. It works as advertised. I'm > very impressed with its capabilities especially at the price ($189.99 at Future > Shop). Market price now is as low as $145 mail-order. > However, the manual that comes with it basically gives you just enough > information to run the demo programs that come with it. They want another $100 > US for the Developer's Kit which presumeably gives you the whole story. Most developer's kit from other companies (say Microsoft?) cost double or triple. Creative Labs, I was told, is a hardware company and would prefer to deal with software only when necessary (like with 3rd-party software developers). > Are there any text files / shareware programs around which give more > details/capabilities? Does anyone know of any deals to be had on the > Developer's kit? Is it only available from Creative Labs Inc? > > The Talking Parrot is great (it even works fine on my V20 enhanced 8Mhz XT > despite the note in the manual which says it won't work well on an XT). > > The VOXKIT voice digitizer works well even using a bottom of the line (and > barrel) microphone which was rolling around under some junk on the floor of my > garage for several years. > > > The SBTALKER facility, however leaves a lot to be desired. I used it to read > a downloaded file of a bunch of MINDLINK messages to me out loud. > > While the SAY program is much superior to the shareware SAY for the built-in PC > speaker which has been floating around as shareware for a few years, it suffers > from a lot of pronounciation deficits. For words it 'knows', the > pronounciation is fine, but when it tries to pronounce things like 'Msg-id:', > it's quite hard to follow unless you read along with it. The speech synthesizer (as in SAY) is made by FirstByte licensed to Creative Labs. You might wanna write to them.
ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (12/31/90)
From article <7383@chorus.fr>, by mir@opera.chorus.fr (Adam Mirowski): > In article <4268@mindlink.UUCP>, a48@mindlink.UUCP (Ullrich Fischer) writes: > %% The VOXKIT voice digitizer works well even using a bottom of the line (and > %% barrel) microphone which was rolling around under some junk on the floor of my > %% garage for several years. > > Didn't succeed in using a Sony Walkman microphone. Will try with an Aiwa one > next time. Records well from the TV set (headphone outlet, with God thanks > separate volume control). Use a microphone of the approx. specified ohm and -70 dB or better (that is, -69, -68 dB, ..., etc). I got my off a sidewalk sale by Radioshack for $10 and it work excellent.
mir@opera.chorus.fr (Adam Mirowski) (12/31/90)
In article <4268@mindlink.UUCP>, a48@mindlink.UUCP (Ullrich Fischer) writes:
%% I've just got a Sound Blaster card for my XT. It works as advertised. I'm
%% very impressed with its capabilities especially at the price ($189.99 at Future
%% Shop).
I got it too. I am less impressed for its sound capabilities, as I paid
FF1750 for it, which is substantially more.
%% However, the manual that comes with it basically gives you just enough
%% information to run the demo programs that come with it. They want another $100
%% US for the Developer's Kit which presumeably gives you the whole story.
It gives even too much information, regarding the modest performances of
some programs (especially fmorgan). It did however appreciated the very
detailed installation instructions (almost an AT bus manual :-).
%% Are there any text files / shareware programs around which give more
%% details/capabilities? Does anyone know of any deals to be had on the
%% Developer's kit? Is it only available from Creative Labs Inc?
Look at ccb.ucsf.edu (128.218.1.13), directory /Pub/Sound_list.
That seems to be a sound-on-PC-and-Soundblaster-Adlib devoted site.
%% The Talking Parrot is great (it even works fine on my V20 enhanced 8Mhz XT
%% despite the note in the manual which says it won't work well on an XT).
Oh, it's great... Especially because that is the only way to regulate the
input level when recording (an oscilloscope-like display is shown before
the conversation actually begins). Unfortunately, it takes 10 to 15 seconds
before you are allowed to quit (this parrot really loves long goodbyes.)
%% The VOXKIT voice digitizer works well even using a bottom of the line (and
%% barrel) microphone which was rolling around under some junk on the floor of my
%% garage for several years.
Didn't succeed in using a Sony Walkman microphone. Will try with an Aiwa one
next time. Records well from the TV set (headphone outlet, with God thanks
separate volume control).
%% The SBTALKER facility, however leaves a lot to be desired. I used it to read
%% a downloaded file of a bunch of MINDLINK messages to me out loud.
%%
%% While the SAY program is much superior to the shareware SAY for the built-in PC
%% speaker which has been floating around as shareware for a few years, it suffers
%% from a lot of pronounciation deficits. For words it 'knows', the
%% pronounciation is fine, but when it tries to pronounce things like 'Msg-id:',
%% it's quite hard to follow unless you read along with it.
%%
%% Also if SAY comes across a word it 'knows' but in all CAPS, it spells it rather
%% than just saying it. Also it wastes a lot of time saying things like 'open
%% paren' and 'greater than' when it comes across these symbols.
%%
%% It would be really nice to be able to modify SAY's internal tables so that it
%% pronounces capitalized words, puts in little clicks and whistles for special
%% characters rather than saying the name of the character (like Victor Borge's
%% punctuation-included speech system where he makes little farting noises (should
%% I be saying 'f**ting' to avoid the bad-word police? :} ) for colon and other
%% appropriate noises for the other punctuation marks). It would also be great to
%% be able to speed up the rate at which it reads. I would like to be able to
%% expand the list of 'known' words/syllables. Currently it pronounces
%% 'misleading' as if the 'isl' belonged in the word 'island'.
I share all these remarks, but are rather satisfied with this program. It is
the best one I ever saw on Atari, Amiga or PC.
%% The FMORGAN program gives a neat PC-keyboard organ (or if you buy the MIDI
%% connector, you can use a MIDI keyboard) but apparently with just one voice
%% controlled from the keyboard. You can't seem to do chords other than the ones
%% supplied automatically by the accompaniment.
I don't think high of FMORGAN. The automatic chords are inappropriate for
30-40% of the time. Sounds are rather slick.
PC keyboard would easily allow multiple simultaneous sounds (as in Aegis
Sonix on Amiga for example).
%% The Dr SBAITSO program is suspiciously like the old LISA program which has been
%% around since the days of S-100 bus homebrew 8080 PCs and on mainframes before
%% that. The only difference seems to be that it speaks the words as it displays
%% them on the screen. Other than that its just the old LISA non-committal,
%% not-really-paying-attention psychiatrist program.
I compiled three ELIZAs (that is the original name Weizenbaum gave its creation
in the sixties) some six years ago and think SBAITSO is quite good in comparison.
It would be interesting if it could accept vocal input.
%% [...]
%% If anyone knows of any goodies available for this great board, I'd like to hear
%% of them. e-Mail would be appreciated since I don't get time to read all these
%% groups all the time. (Maybe if this SAY program can be speeded up and
%% streamlined as noted above, I'll be able to listen to more messages while I'm
%% doing other things) -- Thanks.
There is at least Scream Tracker (song composer from samples, shareware).
I didn't have the time yet to explore the site I cited. BTW, you don't
need any additional utility to play Macintosh sound files. Simply convert
them with voc-hdr (at 22 KHz, 11 KHz etc).
--
Adam Mirowski, mir@chorus.fr (FRANCE), tel. +33 (1) 30-64-82-00 or 74
Chorus systemes, 6, av.Gustave Eiffel, 78182 Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines CEDEXong@d.cs.okstate.edu (ONG ENG TENG) (01/01/91)
From article <1991Jan2.015216.16407@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>, by scott@blueeyes.kines.uiuc.edu (scott): > By contrast, the programmer's manual for the AdLib card only costs $24.95. > Admittedly, the Sound Blaster has more capabilities, but I doubt the SB > programming manual is 4 times as big as the AdLib's! Of course, since the > Blaster is AdLib compatible, the AdLib manual might be worth getting as a > starting point (if you're the budget conscious sort). Good recommandation. How big is Adlib programmer's manual any way? SB developer's kit is about 3 lbs. Of course, Adlib programmer's manual still will NOT include the info on digitized voice input/output and other goodies.
scott@blueeyes.kines.uiuc.edu (scott) (01/02/91)
In article <1990Dec30.123625.3020@d.cs.okstate.edu> ong@d.cs.okstate.edu (E. Teng Ong) writes: >From article <4268@mindlink.UUCP>, by a48@mindlink.UUCP (Ullrich Fischer): >> I've just got a Sound Blaster card for my XT. >> However, the manual that comes with it basically gives you just enough >> information to run the demo programs that come with it. They want another >> $100 US for the Developer's Kit which presumeably gives you the whole story. > >Most developer's kit from other companies (say Microsoft?) cost double or >triple. By contrast, the programmer's manual for the AdLib card only costs $24.95. Admittedly, the Sound Blaster has more capabilities, but I doubt the SB programming manual is 4 times as big as the AdLib's! Of course, since the Blaster is AdLib compatible, the AdLib manual might be worth getting as a starting point (if you're the budget conscious sort). -- Scott Coleman tmkk@uiuc.edu "Unisys has demonstrated the power of two. That's their stock price today." - Scott McNealy on the history of mergers in the computer industry.