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From: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler)
Newsgroups: net.micro.mac
Subject: Re: MacinTalk
Message-ID: <13025@amdcad.UUCP>
Date: Mon, 15-Sep-86 13:31:35 EDT
Article-I.D.: amdcad.13025
Posted: Mon Sep 15 13:31:35 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 15-Sep-86 21:20:12 EDT
References: <1151@hou2h.UUCP> <270@joevax.UUCP> <1090@hoptoad.uucp>
Reply-To: jimb@amdcad.UUCP (Jim Budler)
Organization: AMD, Sunnyvale, California
Lines: 50

In article <1090@hoptoad.uucp> tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney) writes:
+---------------
| As far as MacinTalk is concerned, is Apple at all serious about this
| product?  Does anyone know?  There has been no upgrade since the initial
| release, which as I recall was in Spring or Summer 1985.
+---------------
It isn't a product. Apple provides it to developers as a method of 
using another aspect of the Macintosh. How well it works depends on the
developer, not MacIntalk.
+---------------
| two applications which use it, neither of them well, and neither of them
| from Apple.  First, the Talking Moose desk accessory, which periodically
+---------------
1. Apple created a demo application for it.
2. VMCO (Visual Maug Conference) on Compuserve uses it and allows
	programming a large variety of the voice attibutes.
3. VCO is a similar program for use on one of the other networks (Delphi?).
(2. & 3.) are useless when not used on their own respective network.
4. Captain Magneto.
I'm sure there are more.
+---------------
| causes a poorly animated moose to appear on your screen, say something
| unfunny [unless you program it yourself], and then vanish, leaving you
| wishing you had turned it off; and second, Servant, which has a thoroughly
| obnoxious talk mode that speaks the name of any file you select and so
| forth, using no dictionary file so that most of the names are horribly
| garbled, and slowing the most basic operations down by a factor of four or
| more.  Great stuff, eh?
+---------------
Didn't you notice that 0.79 Beta, Buggy, and not finished notice?
+---------------
| The MacinTalk voice also violates the most basic rule of Macintosh software:
| it is not aesthetically pleasing.  In fact, it grates.  Badly.  Very, very
| badly.  It is totally un-natural sounding, and often hours of fiddling does
| not suffice to create a proper pattern of intonation for a sentence.
+---------------
I thought the most basic rule of Macintosh programming was user, not
programmer friendliness.
+---------------
| So has Apple dropped this turkey or what?
+---------------
Only the shadow knows.
-- 
 Jim Budler
 Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
 (408) 749-5806
 Usenet: {ucbvax,decwrl,ihnp4,allegra,intelca}!amdcad!jimb
 Compuserve:	72415,1200

I got tired of my old signature.