John, There's more than one Dectalk. There's a USB version that I believe is still on the market. I have it, and find it inadequate. There's also a software version that may or may not be supported still by JAWS -I recall posts on this subject, but not the outcome.
Dectalk Express is a hardware synthesizer that doesn't rely on a PC sound card. I find it clearer in articulation than any other synthesizer I've heard, and it has at least as much responsiveness to commands as Eloquence. The drawback is that it hasn't been developed in at least two decades, having lost support when its creator, digital Equipment, was bought out. I believe the purchaser was Compaq, which itself has since been sucked into Hewlett-Packard. Dectalk doesn't handle foreign languages, and with Win7 I find it doesn't read foreign symbols in many contexts, such as online documents. Anyone accustomed to Eloquence is probably best served by that synthesizer because it had later-stage development, although I'm one who still finds its robot quality distracting. But I wish Dectalk Express hadn't been abandoned or that the well-intentioned USB developer had succeeded in capturing its responsiveness -----Original Message----- From: Jfw [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of john.falter Sent: Monday, April 14, 2014 4:45 PM To: The Jaws for Windows support list. Subject: Re: DEC-TALK Express Service Given the various speech synthesizers available today, what is the advantage of dec-talk? On 4/14/2014 10:57 AM, Dave Durber wrote: > Does anyone on the list, know of an individual or company, who services > DEC-TALK Express synthesizers. I found two of them in a cupboard the other > day and, before sending them to be recycled, I would first like to find out > if they can be repaired. > > If anyone can help with this enquiry, Thank you in anticipation. > > -------------- next part -------------- > An HTML attachment was scrubbed... > URL: > <http://lists.the-jdh.com/pipermail/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com/attachments/20140414/40ae72ff/attachment.html> > _______________________________________________ > Jfw mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com > --- This email is free from viruses and malware because avast! Antivirus protection is active. http://www.avast.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <http://lists.the-jdh.com/pipermail/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com/attachments/20140414/82ca52b1/attachment.html> _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com _______________________________________________ Jfw mailing list [email protected] http://lists.the-jdh.com/mailman/listinfo/jfw_lists.the-jdh.com
