Description
What is Dectalk
Dectalk was a speech synthesizer and text-to-speech technology developed by Digital Equipment Corporation in 1984, mainly based on the work of Dennis Klatt at MIT.
The Dectalk Express what connected to the serial port and would speak what was being “printed.”
The synthesizer can process text and produce speech with nine different voices. The Dectalk engine includes a parser that gives users fine control over the synthesized speech’s quality, pitch, and intonation. Dectalk can also be programmed to play phonemes and sing with quite a realistic expression.
[hxae<300,10>piy<300,10> brr<600,12>th<100>dey<600,10> tuw<600,15> yu<1200,14>_<120>]
[hxae<300,10>piy<300,10> brr<600,12>th<100>dey<600,10> tuw<600,17> yu<1200,15>_<120>]
[hxae<300,10>piy<300,10> brr<600,22>th<100>dey<600,19>xdih<600,15>rdeh<600,14>ktao<600,12>k_<120>_<120>]
[hxae<300,20>piy<300,20> brr<600,19>th<100>dey<600,15> tuw<600,17> yu<1200,15>]
The command syntax for musical coding sequences is:
[phoneme<duration, pitch number
Timing
Latency
There is a latency of 200 ms between the trigger and the start of the speech. This latency is very consistent, allowing the speech to stay in the tempo even if not precisely on the beat. The firmware uses the gate going down to stop the speech, preparing the chip for the next utterance, so when sequencing some stutter-like speech in a loop, they still fire up in sync with the tempo.
Real-time
The various voice parameters are applied just before triggering the speech and are ineffective while speaking. They are applied to the next utterance. The best is to fiddle a bit with the knobs for the desired effects.
Firmware
Vax Firmware 82.59 KB 4345 downloads
VAX speaks English, Castillan, and Latin American Spanish. Pick the right firmware! ...
DECtalk user guide 1.08 MB 1454 downloads
A very useful guide to help you using the DECtalk command and building your own very...Text files
Apollo 11 complete transcript 709.93 KB 1849 downloads
Credits here I modified the script so the various callsigns use differents DECtalk...Designing Voices 0.73 KB 1518 downloads
Load this file to learn how to design your own voices by tweaking the various voice...Spell mode demo 2.71 KB 1748 downloads
2 files to show how to use the spell mode : one with a list of three letter acronym...Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" - pseudo singing mode demo 0.00 KB 42 downloads
Isaac Asimov's "Three Laws of Robotics" First 3 lines in normal text to speech mode,...Oblique Strategies 3.58 KB 1424 downloads
Brian Eno's Oblique Strategies Original 1975 version (113 lines) ...Songs
Media
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