No there probably will be no open source dectalk. The guys that made the Epson
phonics speech chip will probably be the last. The company who makes the
Phonics code went out of business and it was not a pretty split. When I was
the project lead on the Orion TI-84 there company was a wreck and the contract
for the things we wanted to do voice wise was never fulfilled. So I would say
the ability to get that code died around 2013 to 2016 Parallax has hung on
because the people making the chips can use it on old designs. Try to buy
those chips or the software now and you will meat a brick wall.
Ken
-----Original Message-----
From: raspberry-vi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx <raspberry-vi-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> On
Behalf Of Jayson Smith
Sent: Friday, January 1, 2021 7:38 AM
To: raspberry-vi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx; Travis Siegel <tsiegel@xxxxxxxxxxx>; Ben
Mustill-Rose <ben@xxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [raspberry-vi] Re: Wow!
Hi,
You had me excited at first, when mentioning an open-source DECtalk
reimplementation, as I didn't know such a thing existed. However, upon looking,
it seems they just use a DECtalk 5 version from Fonix. If I'm wrong and there
really is an open-source DECtalk reimplementation, I'd love to know about and
possibly play with it!
Jayson
On 12/31/2020 9:57 PM, Travis Siegel wrote:
Easily done. I may take a stab at this, since I've wanted to build an
external synthesizer for quite a while now anyway. Parallax has a
speech synthesizer called the emic2. It's $60, and uses the I2C
interface method, so it will work just fine on a pi. I've used this
synthesizer on multiple projects, and it has worked just fine each and every
time.
It's an opensource implementation of the dectalk synth, handles both
english and spanish, and uses two different synthesizer command sets,
both the original dectalk commands (which are the ones I'd use to
maximize compability with code that wants to talk to it), and a newer
set that doesn't give as much fine grain control, but is easier to use.
It would be simple to put the emic2 on a bread board, wire it to the
pi, then simply tell the screen reader to use the dectalk commandset,
and poof, instant external synth, no speech generation necessary on
the pi, thereby saving you CPU cycles that could otherwise be used for
more important tasks. I currently have two of these synthesizers, and
as soon as I get a power adapter for my shiny new pi4, I'd be happy to
add this task to my list of other things I'd like to get working on said
device.
On 12/31/2020 3:19 PM, Ben Mustill-Rose wrote:
A DIY synth would be a nice project for a PI. Find the docs for /===========================================================
reverse engineer the protocol for a widely supported hardware synth
then use something like eSpeak for the actual speaking. Doesn't even
need a Pi really.
On 12/31/20, Michael A Ray <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Careful with serial port connected hardware speech synthesisers===========================================================
connected via USB to serial adapters.
Most, if not all, serial port synths require a connection that
supports hardware handshaking.
As far as I know, some, if not all, USB to serial adapters do not
support this.
The PL2303 chip adapters almost certainly do not. I think some of
the FTDI chip ones do. But many of these are not supplied with
enough pins connected through for this to be true.
The synth needs hardware handshaking to tell the computer when to
stop sending more speech data while it catches up.
This is not heard as pauses, the data is arriving too quickly for
this, but too quickly for the synth to keep up and it needs to pause
delivery.
Also, the synth probably uses handshaking to tell the PC when it has
finished, and when more data can be sent.
The kernel modules for the synths that SpeakUp supports are also not
built in Raspbian at least.
So you would need to rebuild your own kernel.
This is not difficult to do. But should be done by cross-compiling
on a desktop.
The first time I compiled a kernel on a Raspberry Pi, it took
fifteen hours.
Sure that was a 512 Raspberry Pi 1B. But it is still probably very
slow even on an 8GB Pi 4.
Even if it were much faster, it would be a good idea to build on a
USB drive, because a kernel build uses a LOT of reads and writes,
and the SD card is very slow.
On 31/12/2020 19:13, kperry@xxxxxxxxxxxxx wrote:
My old doubletalk LT died and the parts that burnt out we were not--
able to get. With that said check this out. This would be great
to add to my raspberry PI and speakup: RC systems is selling the
doubletalk still.
$179
https://www.rcsys.com/order.htm
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This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the
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Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
Michael A. Ray
Analyst/Programmer
Witley, Surrey, South-east UK
"Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but
when there is nothing left to take away." -- A. de Saint-Exupery
https://cromarty.github.io/
http://eyesfreelinux.ninja/
http://www.raspberryvi.org/
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Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the
Raspberry Pi Foundation.
This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the
views and attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not
reflect those of the Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
The raspberry-vi mailing list
Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
Foundation.
This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views and
attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect those of
the Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
The raspberry-vi mailing list
Archives: //www.freelists.org/archives/raspberry-vi
Administrative contact: <mike.ray@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
-----------------------------------------------------------
Raspberry Pi and the Raspberry Pi logo are trademarks of the Raspberry Pi
Foundation.
This list is not affiliated to the Raspberry Pi Foundation and the views and
attitudes expressed by the subscribers to this list do not reflect those of
the Foundation.
Mike Ray, list creator, January 2013
