LGR Oddware - DECtalk PC Speech Synthesizer
Added 2019-05-10 02:52:53 +0000 UTCAnother of those items I've always wanted to talk about, so here we go.
Gotta love old school speech synths and the fact that this one is contained on an ISA card for use with DOS PCs? Doubly enjoyable. Hooray for full-length ISA cards!
While the original DECtalk is pretty well-documented, this PC version has proven to be trickier to figure out. Took some time to track down the right software and I haven't found out how to completely customize the voices through a terminal, but thanks to the documentation and emulator on archive.org I think this is a decent demonstration of the tech for this video at least.
Hope you enjoy!
Comments
Druaga's DECTalk cover of "Tender Lies" is one of the best. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eho0Pb84RmE
Kadah
2019-05-18 02:48:12 +0000 UTCGreat video, Clint, but I'm disappointed you didn't make the DEC Talk say "Practice Mooooode" with the deep voice option...
Frederic St-Georges
2019-05-17 14:57:11 +0000 UTCI love these old speech synthesizers, reminds me of being a kid, and prank calling friends over the dial-up modem, and using speech synthesizers to mess with them ππ...sometimes I miss the 90sπ....
2019-05-17 01:59:54 +0000 UTCYep, it slows down after a certain number of characters, presumably so as not to surpass the speech synthesis memory :)
LGR
2019-05-16 03:56:38 +0000 UTCDude, the size of that thing alone cracks me up. Kids nowadays don't know anything about cards sagging :D That "read free for all thing" is hilarious. Did the command slowed down because of the reading or was it just my impression?
Deckard Games
2019-05-15 20:14:03 +0000 UTCThey updated it a few years back, but it's still based on DECtalk Paul :) https://blogs.mprnews.org/updraft/2016/06/noaa-weather-radio-has-a-new-voice-and-his-name-is-paul/
LGR
2019-05-13 18:11:15 +0000 UTCDefinitely, there are warnings about this in the software's readme file. Haven't tried though!
LGR
2019-05-13 18:10:18 +0000 UTCThis is still used for the National Weather Service out of Greenville/Spartenburg, SC for weather alerts. i can hear it now, that long tone and then "Please stand by for important local weather information" ahhh good stuff
2019-05-13 16:30:33 +0000 UTCIs it possible to make it overflow using that mode that was reading the DOS screen? I wonder if you could stomp on that 1mb of RAM with a large enough output.
Bryan Smith
2019-05-13 04:26:06 +0000 UTCSounds pretty similar to ST Talk, which didn't even need additional hardware to work, way before 1992.
Martin Thoresen
2019-05-12 00:10:20 +0000 UTCThe video link was updated this morning. Should work if you refresh the page. If not try this! https://youtu.be/bPW2S4fZMJY
LGR
2019-05-11 23:03:34 +0000 UTCIs something wrong? I keep getting "video removed by owner"
Nordicberserk
2019-05-11 23:01:43 +0000 UTCOoh, hook this up to an X-10 system with motion sensing and you'd be good to go
LGR
2019-05-11 22:45:52 +0000 UTCπ΅ DECtalk Betty, BAM-BA-LAMπ΅
LGR
2019-05-11 22:41:47 +0000 UTCGlad to hear it! The emulator's a lot of fun, it's wild to me that such obscure devices can be so easily played with by anyone now :)
LGR
2019-05-11 18:35:00 +0000 UTCHah! that was pretty awesome.. thanks for the link to the archive org emulator of this
Evan B
2019-05-11 14:14:40 +0000 UTCYou're right. Will address that, thanks!
LGR
2019-05-11 12:50:52 +0000 UTCGreat video! Just a nitpick: at 7:10, you mention the 1MB RAM but the video seems to show a bunch of 74HCT374 chips which, if I'm not wrong, are D flip-flops (sort of 1-byte register). On the other hand I spotted eight chips in zig-zag in-line package on the top-left corner of the board. Some memory chips were made with that package so I think that's where the 1MB actually is. Cheers!
Enrico Gueli
2019-05-11 09:23:49 +0000 UTCBAM-BA-LAM
Skoddie
2019-05-11 02:27:21 +0000 UTCHa! There are actually a couple tapes and records DEC released to demonstrate the system, but an audiobook would be next-level π
LGR
2019-05-11 02:23:59 +0000 UTCSure is! I snuck in a little Moonbase Alpha astronaut at the bottom right of the video when talking about DECtalk singing :)
LGR
2019-05-11 02:23:04 +0000 UTCThe same speech API was also used in Moonbase Alpha. That's right, the game that brought us "John Madden! John Madden! John Madden! (Football!) John Madden! John Madden!"
Headset Guy
2019-05-11 01:19:42 +0000 UTCThank you! Yeah they really do stand side by side quite nicely don't they.
LGR
2019-05-10 22:44:20 +0000 UTCFantastic video as always, Clint! After hearing all the different voices read your gleefully demented sentences, I'm really hoping for an LGR book on tape read by a DECtalk one of these days ;) Also, this video makes me wonder about the history of humans and crap.
Eric Barch
2019-05-10 22:43:51 +0000 UTCI love how the design aesthetics of the Woodgrain LGR PC and the DECTalk speaker are just meant to be. Also, the intro with you presenting the product was really nice! Great piece of history Clint, Oddware is a great start for the weekend.
LJFox
2019-05-10 22:13:41 +0000 UTCBoth! I do a lot of searching online for digitized articles, newspapers.com is a great resource. So is Google Books and the archive.org literature library. Beyond that, I have a pretty substantial microfiche archive at my local libraries and universities that I raid as needed. And if all else fails, I track down original printings and scan them myself.
LGR
2019-05-10 22:04:38 +0000 UTCGreat video and interesting tech! How do you go about collecting the different news article clippings in your videos? Are they from an online database somewhere or can you find them at some libraries?
Eigen
2019-05-10 21:13:02 +0000 UTCHaha, yeah if anything it adds extra appeal!
LGR
2019-05-10 21:05:05 +0000 UTC<i>"...sounds something like a cross between Indian and Swedish..."</i> I fail to see how this a problem.
Freakish Uproar
2019-05-10 20:58:43 +0000 UTCIndeed, I imagine most of them sold outside of the consumer market. I got mine from a university surplus auction, it had been used in classes for the vision impaired! They had dozens of them, all stacked up.
LGR
2019-05-10 20:49:05 +0000 UTCYou and me both, hehe
LGR
2019-05-10 20:12:14 +0000 UTCGreat video. I was not aware of this particular speech synth. I guess it was probably prohibitively expensive for the average consumer. You should have prank called somebody with it! :-)
The 8-Bit Guy
2019-05-10 16:56:46 +0000 UTCHa! That was, uh, completely planned yes :P
LGR
2019-05-10 16:50:17 +0000 UTCYou bet, I'm glad you enjoyed it!
LGR
2019-05-10 16:49:47 +0000 UTCI haven't watched the full video yet, but I just have to comment on how neatly the right half of your glasses fits into the "Presents:" lettering :D
Renzo ThΓΆnen
2019-05-10 16:37:52 +0000 UTCSeeing JAWS being used takes me back to my High School days at the Tennessee School for the Blind in the early 90's. This was a huge nostalgia trip for me, thank you.
Vaggumon
2019-05-10 16:14:13 +0000 UTCMan speech synths are awesome XD
Alyxx the Rat
2019-05-10 16:13:05 +0000 UTCI think it was something a little more advanced though by that time though.
Ezra Knickelbine
2019-05-10 14:56:21 +0000 UTCoh dang! this voice influenced me a lot as a kid when hearing weather warnings on the radio. "seek shelter immEEDIATELY"
Ezra Knickelbine
2019-05-10 14:54:44 +0000 UTCCreepy, but awesome!
Myles MAN
2019-05-10 13:18:02 +0000 UTCI honestly wish I could use this voice on Google Assistant
Dave Hunt
2019-05-10 12:49:14 +0000 UTCI may be remembering wrong, but the software (using some of the audio hardware features perhaps) on the amiga seemed to pretty much match the dectalk, while the whole computer cost less than the dectalk add on. Why did anyone buy the dectalk by the mid 1980s?
Lennart Sorensen
2019-05-10 11:32:53 +0000 UTCIn the future if I dedicate a basement as my own little museum, I need this to welcome guests
Uncleawesome
2019-05-10 08:14:07 +0000 UTCAh Man I love your odd ware series. This reminded me of one of the first things I did when I got my Amiga back in the day. Load up the speech synthesiser and natural progress to such sophistication as getting it to say rude words whilst I giggled like a child (well I still was one to be fair).
Richard Shears
2019-05-10 07:25:43 +0000 UTCSounds very much like some of the synthetic voice effects in System Shock... not identical, but very similar... I'm only a few minutes into the video, maybe you noticed that too... :o
Kris Asick
2019-05-10 06:47:33 +0000 UTCVery rare piece of kit -- congrats
Jim Leonard
2019-05-10 04:38:54 +0000 UTCIt is a truly primitive yet powerful urge indeed.
LGR
2019-05-10 04:15:06 +0000 UTCIt's an older meme sir, but it checks out.
LGR
2019-05-10 04:06:55 +0000 UTCI love how itβs basically human nature to make anything that can talk curse and say weird stuff, why are we so immature lol
Zachary Outen
2019-05-10 04:06:31 +0000 UTCBased on a much newer version of it, but yep!
LGR
2019-05-10 04:05:55 +0000 UTCHit the nail on the head there lol
Alyxx the Rat
2019-05-10 04:04:57 +0000 UTC"Characterized as sounding like a drunken Swede" is using a lot of words to basically describe Danish, aka Nordic throat disease! π π©π°
Adam Christensen
2019-05-10 03:58:32 +0000 UTCβBut can it make my ROFLcopter go soi soi soi soi soi soi soi, like Microsoft Sam?
William Hummel
2019-05-10 03:40:59 +0000 UTCI swear to god that same voice synthesizer was used in a game called Moonbase Alpha. The singing is what finally jogged my memory.
Jeff Davis
2019-05-10 03:29:34 +0000 UTCI always loved these things!! I was amazed by the Talking Parrot demo app that came with the Sound Blaster Pro I got from my Brother in Law.
Carey Brown
2019-05-10 03:15:50 +0000 UTCSpeaking of speech recognition software, I would love to see a video on Nuance Dragon Naturally Speaking and how it works. I'm physically disabled and use Dragon to type what I say, it also does voice commands like closing windows, minimize thing, switch apps, and many other useful tasks. You can also have Dragon read whatever you typed :P I'm sure it's early versions didn't work as well as their modern versions. I also wonder about the difficulties switching from different versions of Windows over the years.
Terry Lee
2019-05-10 03:09:57 +0000 UTCQuite possibly! As mentioned in the video, it was used in quite a number of movies back in the day :)
LGR
2019-05-10 03:01:34 +0000 UTCI wonder who here found out about the DEC talk from Druaga1
ChrisFratz
2019-05-10 03:01:29 +0000 UTCIs this the same voice synthesizer used in "Blank Check"? Sounds quite similar.
Joe Moorman
2019-05-10 02:57:38 +0000 UTC
