Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!snorkelwacker!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!emory!auc!rar
From: rar@auc.UUCP (Rodney Ricks)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Complaints about Amiga OS 2.0
Summary: It's only a toy if you only play with it.
Keywords: speech 2.0 shell menu
Message-ID: <32420@auc.UUCP>
Date: 28 May 90 16:57:46 GMT
References: <20526@snow-white.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: rar@auc.UUCP (Rodney Ricks)
Organization: Atlanta University Center, Atlanta, Ga.
Lines: 119

In article <20526@snow-white.udel.EDU> GWO110%URIACC.BITNET@brownvm.brown.edu (F. Michael Theilig) writes:
]On 29 May 90 14:50:16 GMT you said:
]>... I have some complaints about Amiga OS 2.0.
]>
]>...                                               Yet, whole parts of
]>the Amiga's OS were hardly touched at all.
]>
]>   I am speaking of the Shell windows.
]>...    adding menus to the Shell windows would have taken Commodore
]>at most a week to do.
]>
]     You are right.  It would be very easy to add menu items to the shell
] window.  My responce is that if you are using the CLI, then you are
] going out of your way to avoid using the GUI.

Not true.  I use the CLI a lot.  I also use Workbench a lot.  I use whichever
one seems to be best suited to what I'm doing at the moment.  Since I currently
can't see many of the files with Workbench, I use the CLI to manipulate them.
When I get 2.0, I'll probably end up using Workbench much more.

I don't use the CLI to avoid Workbench.  I use it when I can't use Workbench.

>>                                   Such support ... would
>>greatly facilitate it's use.

How so?

>     Having a GUI *INSIDE* your CLI is almost comical.

Wow!  With just windows and a menu you have a GUI!?!?  I'd better call the
folks at MIT, and tell them that X Windows IS a GUI!  :-)

So adding menus to the CLI would not make a GUI inside a CLI, and it wouldn't
exactly be comical.  Although I can't think of any good uses of it at the
moment...

>                  Why don't you write your own?

Yeah, buddy, go ahead and write your own Shell.  It'll just take a day or so.
Just ask Matt Dillon.  I bet he whipped his up in two minutes!  :-) :-)

>>   I also have a beef

Where's the beef?!?!?   (I'm sorry, I couldn't help it!!!)

>>   I also have a beef with the speach support with Amiga OS 2.0.
>>When the Alpha version of OS 1.4 was shown, Commodore announced
>>that the Amiga's speach software was going to be substantially
>>improved, making the Amiga's speach sound much more human-like.

Hey!  So I'm not the ONLY one who remebered hearing that!

>>However, when trying out Amiga OS 2.0 on an A3000, I could not
>>detect any improvements whatsoever in the Amiga's speach
>>synthesis.
>>
>     Speech synthesis is a toy.

   It's only a toy if you only play with it.

   I have a friend, who told me a couple of years ago about how he really
didn't see the need of one feature of his computer.  Although it was
available, most IBM PC's at the time were not equipped with this feature.  In
fact, he ALSO called this feature a toy.  What was he talking about?

   Color graphics.

   He thought of it as a toy because he didn't use it (except for games).


   Many people would probably think of sound (beyond a beep) on a PC as a toy.
Of course, many of us remember when the consensus of computer programmers
and users thought that GUI's were just toys.  Although some still hold onto
that opinion, GUI's generally aren't considered as toys anymore.


   Speech synthesis can be very useful.

   The CURRENT speech synthesis on the Amiga is not terribly useful, because
it's not very good.  If you want to talk about COMICAL, try the supposedly
"female" voice on the Amiga.  I have yet to hear any setting that makes the
"female" voice sound anything like a female.

   Improved speech synthesis on the Amiga could be VERY useful.  Think in
terms of educational software.  The computer could read to a child, as it
highlights the current word it is saying.  Think about foreign language
instruction, where a Spanish translator/narrator combination could help with
learning Spanish.  I know that *I* could sure use that!!!

   Oh, and I guess multitasking is unnecessary, too!  :-)

>                                 No system will be hindered or hailed
> on respect of sheech synthesis.

... except by those who need or can use speech synthesis.

I hope the final release of 2.0 has good, HIGH quality speech.  I would like
to be able to have the computer talk in a female voice that actually sounds
like a female voice.  I would like that male voice to sound much more like
a male voice.  If it ends up taking an unreasonable amount of memory, make
the new library & device available as options on an extra's disk.  I will
certainly use them.  As it is now, (by my definition), the Amiga's speech
synthesis IS a toy to ME.

>                                                            Any idea
> when 2.0 will be available?
 
From what I've heard, September.  The software business being what it is,
look for it around Christmas.  :-)

>>                                  -MB-
>      F. Michael Theilig  -  The University of Rhode Island at Little Rest

Rodney Ricks - Morehouse College
-- 
"We may have come over here in different ships,
 but we're all in the same boat now."   --   Jesse Jackson                   //
                                                                       \\  //
Rodney Ricks,   Morehouse College                                        \/