Talk:DECtalk
This is what MC Hawkings invented. LOL
Actually, Steven Hawking's original voice was NOT DECTalk, but Telesensory/Speech Plus's Prose 2000 version 1.0. The voice is literally indistinguishable from DECTalk's "Perfect Paul" preset, because both were based on the same KlattTalk/MITalk code. "Perfect Paul" was the only MITalk/KlattTalk/DECTalk voice at first.
How did this happen? Dennis Klatt was in talks with DEC in 1979 to sell his KlattTalk technology to them, but while in final negotiations, he was approached by Telesensory Inc. about licensing his KlattTalk engine for use in their 'OVATOR'? (not sure I have this right) scanner/reader product, to replace an inferior Votrax VSA?(not sure of model but it could have been any of the early VS<letter> series which had an mc6800 on board)-based unlimited text to speech engine card/board. So, Klatt side-licensed his code to them before he was locked into his exclusive deal with DEC. A fact which DEC was not too pleased with but couldn't do much about. Telesensory used his code for the ovator?, for the kurzweil-branded but partly TSI-designed 'Kurzweil reading machine', and for their first standalone text to speech module, the 'Prose 2000'. The code is actually different from KlattTalk/DECTalk because the speech front-end engine (the most complex part, which parses the sentences and words) was vastly stripped down so it could run on an Intel 8086. The middle end engine (which generates speech paramaters) and the back end engine (which renders the speech, and is known as KLSYN if you google it) are both the same or nearly the same as DECTalk's engine, and hence the output voice is indistinguishable. Telesensory/TSI later split their text to speech division off as another company called 'Speech Plus' (named after the first Telesensory Talking Product, the 1975/6 'Speech+' Talking calculator), which marketed the Prose 2000, a non-raw-pcb version of it called the prose 2020, and improved upon the engine. Later versions of the Prose 2000 engine (3.0, for instance) do not sound very much like DECTalk's Perfect Paul at all. Lord Nightmare 01:42, 17 September 2007 (UTC)
Stephen Hawking Former User?
This page says Hawking is a former user of DecTalk, however Hawkings page says he still uses it, both can't be right?