Date: Fri, 1 Apr 1994 20:29:56 -0500 From: Joe Campbell 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 , 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