Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!brunix!omh
From: omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: No Macintalk in system 7? (was Re: Moose and SE/30)
Message-ID: <32015@brunix.UUCP>
Date: 9 Mar 90 01:44:58 GMT
References: <oZwoIem00UzxQ2EEwC@andrew.cmu.edu> <48744@coherent.coherent.com> <3564@infmx.UUCP> <49013@coherent.coherent.com>
Sender: news@brunix.UUCP
Reply-To: omh@cs.brown.edu (Owen M. Hartnett)
Organization: Brown University Department of Computer Science
Lines: 58

In article <49013@coherent.coherent.com> dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) writes:
>In article <3564@infmx.UUCP> cortesi@infmx.UUCP (David Cortesi) writes:
>> Are you serious, that System 7 will break Macintalk?  It isn't used
>> just by the Moose, you know -- to start with there are quite a number
>> of hypercard stacks that use it, and there must be plenty of "real"
>> applications besides that do.  Say it ain't so...?
>
>I could say it ain't so, but I'm not Joe Isuzu, and my nose is already
>quite long enough ;-}
>
>I'm afraid that it _is_ so.  See Tech Note #268, dated February 1990.
>
>Apple has been warning developers for quite some time (years) that
>Macintalk is utterly unsupported and might not work with future
>Macintosh hardware or software.  The time is upon us, it seems!
>
>On the bright side:  "Apple is committed to providing the developer
>community with an array of speech technologies integrated wih the Sound
>Manager." (Tech Note 268)  This suggests that it might be possible
>for someone to write a speech driver which would [a] use the new
>Sound Manager speech hooks, whatever they are, and [b] would provide
>a Macintalk-compatible driver interface.
>

Here's another Apple misteak!  Before pulling the plug on good ole
Macintalk, Apple should instead be rolling out its replacement.  
Apple has been "committed to providing the developer community with
an array of speech technologies" for several years now but has done
*nothing!*  The fact that this has been cut off without providing for
a replacement seems to indicate quite strongly that there is nothing
in the channel now and won't be for some time.

As a developer who uses it in a commercial product, I've been a 
one-man lobbyist for a better Macintalk for years.  About 90% of
the educational software for the Macintosh uses Macintalk.  Now
Apple says it wants to promote educational software for the Mac
-- what better way than to cripple it and have to send it all
in for a rewrite?  

I know, I know, I've already bought a sound digitizer.  But this means
that all educational software will require a MacPlus or better and 
about the only thing a <Plus Macintosh is good for is to give it to
your kids with some educational software.

Last year at Boston MacExpo, an Apple VP for education dropped by my
booth to thank me for writing educational software.  Where are you now,
Apple?

Remember here: I'm not pushing for the retention of Macintalk - but for
the introduction of a Macintalk Plus (or Macintalk IIxi, if you will)

-Owen


Owen Hartnett				omh@cs.brown.edu.CSNET
Brown University Computer Science	omh@cs.brown.edu
					uunet!brunix!omh
"Don't wait up for me tonight because I won't be home for a month."