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From: dzimmerman@gnh-tff.cts.com (Daniel Zimmerman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apple2
Subject: Re: ByteWorks Speech Toolkit
Message-ID: <1991Jun14.041608.25593@crash.cts.com>
Date: 14 Jun 91 04:16:08 GMT
Sender: root@crash.cts.com
Organization: Crash TimeSharing, El Cajon, CA
Lines: 41

> From: sb@pnet91.cts.com (Stephen Brown)
> Subject: ByteWorks Speech Toolkit
> Date: 8 Jun 91 06:30:04 GMT
> 
> Today, I receieved a special purchase offer to get ByteWorks' Speech Toolkit
> disk. Does anyone know how this software compares to the speech synthesizer
> used in Math Talk and Smooth Talker? My opinion was that the speech from
> these programs was, at best, lousy. Now, it could have been the
> implementation that was weak rather than the programmer's tools themselves. I
> have no way of knowing that...
> 
> I'm interested in the Speech Toolkit, but I want to 'see' (or hear) before I
> buy.
> 
> +---------------------------------------------------------+
> | Stephen Brown                           Toronto, Canada |
> | Internet: sb@pnet91.cts.com      UUCP: utzoo!pnet91!sb  |
> +---------------------------------------------------------+
> | Apple II Forever !!!                                    |
> +---------------------------------------------------------+
> | Like my new .signature. ?    Too bad.                   |
> +---------------------------------------------------------+

As far as I know, the Byte Works' "Talking Tools" are EXACTLY THE SAME as the
old SmoothTalker tools. I believe that Byte Works obtained the license for
them, maybe touched them up a bit, stuck them in a new package and offered
them to us.. They didn't even bother to convert them to User Toolsets (Mike
Westerfield posted on America Online that they were System Toolsets - I
thought System Toolsets had to come from Apple...?).  I don't have them, but I
don't know, after having heard the SmoothTalker tools, if I would pay for
them... (I may, since they are selling it at a big discount for owners of
other ORCA products)..

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Daniel M. Zimmerman             InterNet - dzimmerman@gnh-tff.cts.com
  TFF Enterprises       America Online - Surak TFF    CompuServe - 76407,2246
 
"Learn reason above all. Learn clear thought; learn to know what is from what
seems to be, and what you wish to be. This is the key to everything: the truth
of reality, the reality of truth. What IS will set you free."
                                                        - Surak Of Vulcan