Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 20:29:56 -0500
From: Joe Campbell <jpcampb@afterlife.ncsc.mil>
Subject: Listing of Speech Manager Apps
Listing of Speech Manager/MacInTalk Pro/PlainTalk Aware Applications
3/28/94
Key Words: Speech Manager MacInTalk PlainTalk Gala Tea text to speech TTS
(Display in small monofont, e.g., 9pt Courier)
Note: The Feb '94 Apple Developer CD has MacinTalkPro 2, but Apple
has not updated their ftp site as of 24 March '94.
Here are some of the Speech Manager aware text-to-speech (TTS)
applications that I know of (there are more on the Apple Developer
CD-ROMs). If I've missed some, please feel free to add to the list
and also let me know if you disagree with my "Comments." You'll
probably need to increase the memory allocations of Speech Manager
aware applications if you want to use the high quality voices (I
generally add a couple megabytes because the high quality voices
need a lot of RAM). As for some applications (which you'll need to
actually make your Mac talk), the ones I've been playing with follow.
Relatively speaking, Apple's Speech Manager, with the high quality
voices, has a synthesized voice quality and pronunciation that are
among the best I've heard (Bellcore's Orator might do better with
proper nouns). Do you agree? Has anyone done formal testing of the
Speech Manager vs other TTS systems?
Is there a Speech Manager aware application that allows graphical
specification of pitch and rate trajectories (similar to SoundEdit's
Bender, but on text or phoneme strings rather than the waveform)?
The Speech Manager is available from the Internet via anonymous ftp
to ftp.apple.com in /dts/mac/sys.soft/speech. There are 3 files in
this directory:
6273632 Aug 14 22:51 macintalk-pro.hqx
PlainTalk Text-To-Speech 1.0 speech synthesizer
extension (includes Female Voice, Compressed);
TTS Female Voice; TTS Male Voice; and
TTS Male Voice, Compressed. Requires 68020 or better!
370108 Aug 13 04:30 speech-manager-docs.hqx
Apple DocViewer format (Inside Macintosh style,
no installation instructions - just drag everything
onto your closed System Folder).
262569 Aug 7 07:01 speech-manager.hqx
Speech Manager 1.1.1 (includes Marvin's voice) and
MacInTalk Voices 1.1.1 (9 more voices). Runs most Macs.
Some of the following applications require Apple's stdTTS extension (a
standard dialog handler). It's also on ftp.apple.com:
/dts/mac/sys.soft/quicktime/sample.code/speech-media-handler.hqx
The stdTTS extension is in one of the folders you get when you expand
the file "speech-media-handler.hqx". Just install it in your extensions
folder and restart.
Part of the Speech Manager can be purchased with At Ease 2.x (and with
System 7 Pro?).
Apple's work in spoken language technologies and systems is described in:
Lee, Kai-Fu. "The Conversational Computer: An Apple Perspective."
(Keynote Speech) In Proc. Eurospeech in Berlin, ESCA, September, 1993.
Happy talkin'
Joe
.............................................................................
; Dr. Campbell N3JBC jpcampb@afterlife.ncsc.mil 74040.305@compuserve.com ;
; Speaking for myself Happiness = Reality - Expectations, Click & Clack ;
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Sources:
AOL = America Online
info-mac = {ftp sumex-aim.stanford.edu, ftp wuarchive.wustl.edu, et al.}
MW = MacWarehouse (800) 255-6227
QC = Quality Computers (800) 777-3642
Application, etc. Source Comments
_________________ ________ _________________________________________________
AddressSpeech info-mac 4D talking address book (from Speech Pack 2.0)
At Ease 2.0.1 MW Friendly desktop that speaks file names
At Ease 2.0.1 WG MW Friendly desktop that speaks file names
Eliza 3.1 AOL Talking Eliza (Rogerian psych therapist)
ExcelTalk 2 info-mac Excel Macro Sheet to speak the contents of cells
FB speech Inside Basic Mag, volume 3, no. 6. FutureBasic demo
FB Speech demo Inside Basic Mag, volume 3, no. 7. FutureBasic demo
Fortune 1.1 info-mac Like a talking UNIX fortune command - slick
HearIt 1.0d3 Apple Dev CD Speak highlighted text from most applications
Homer 0.92d9 zaphod.ee.pitt.edu GUI IRC client, assign nicks voices - slick
Informer 0.1b2 info-mac Leave voice messages for friends and colleagues
MacMessage 1.1.1 AOL Share talking messages/customizable startup
Recite 1.0 info-mac Read text files aloud
Say info-mac MPW Tool which converts standard input to speech
ScriptTools 1.2 info-mac Write AppleScript scripts to say text messages
Siege Watch 1.01f info-mac Wryly political speaking clock
SmartVoice QC Add speech to apps & suite of talking acc; $50
So To Speak 1.0 info-mac SM demo w/dual voices, full parameter control
Speak It! info-mac Type in a message and have it spoken
Speaker 1.12 info-mac Simple text file editor, speaks on <CR>, macros
Speak2Me 1.0 info-mac Read the icons in the finder as they are selected
Speak Note GH 1.0 info-mac Say contents of notification boxes, e.g. PrintMon
SpeakTextFiles1.01info-mac Read text files, change voice, rate, pitch & mod
Speech Demo 0.1 info-mac Canned speech manager demo (mac-speech-01)
Speecher 1.2.1 info-mac Customizable word pronunciation/substitution
SpeechFKEY 1.0 info-mac Speak the contents of the clipboard
SpeechManagerdemo info-mac Command line interface, C source, aka -explorer
Speech Pack 2.0 info-mac 4th Dimension external, add speech to database
SpeechUnitEx info-mac Pascal source code for speech in Lab 7
speek-02b info-mac Speech XCMD for HyperCard
SpokesDaemon 1.01 info-mac Scriptable, Apple event-aware, SM daemon
TalkingClockPro2.0info-mac AppleScriptable talking clock extension (2.0b0)
TeachText 7.2 AV Mac Apple's talking TeachText (simple editor w/QT)
Tex-Edit 2.1.1 AOL Talking word processor, McSink like, modeming
VoiceDemo 1.0.1 info-mac Bare bones phrase talker
Welcome!v1.3.2 info-mac A talking Welcome to Macintosh startup
Word Speak PIM 1.00.d03 Talking Plug-In-Module for MS Word 5,
experimental, unsupported, buggy, beware!
Speech Rhythms AOL A cool text file for one of the above apps:
ss cc cc tt cc cc cc cc cc cc cc
ss cc cc tt cc cc ra ra ra,,,
Here are a few rhythms I came up with. Drop me a line and let me know how you ll
ll ll ll ll like them.
Ken Lacovara (Lacovara@aol.com),,,
Bossa Nova,
xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
Conga,
xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
Jazz,
xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx xx
Rock,
tt xx tt tt xx tt tt xx tt tt tt xx tt xx tt tt xx tt tt xx tt tt tt xx
Military,
cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc cc
cc cc cc
,,,,,
That's ebedee ebedee ebedee ebedee all folks!
pp pp pp pp pp pp pp