[rescue] DECtalk

[Sheldon T. Hall]

Tim H. writes ...

> A lont time ago, seems like I was a middle teenager, Corning Inc. put
> some fancy DEC system in so that the stats of the glass furnaces could
> be checked by phone.  Just call the number and the furnace would talk to
> you.  There were different voices for each furnace. Apparently at the
> time it was one of the best speech synthesis products around. Would that
> have been DECtalk? Time frame may not be perfect, but I think it was
> when I was still living in PA, and that would have been <1983.

I really don't know what the state of the text-to-speech art was before
1983; the first involvement I had with it was a bit later, and all we had
was the Watson board and an IBM board of some sort.  I think either of those
would do what you mention, but I don't know when they became available.

I don't remember the DECtalk having any 'phone capabilities, but I last saw
it in 1993, so I could have forgotten.  Certainly, the project I worked on
didn't use that capability, if it existed.

-Shel