5 ms·

DECTalk (famously, the TTS used by Stephen Hawking) lets you mark up individual syllables, and it even had a singing feature circa 1985.[1] It is indeed messy t

DECTalk (famously, the TTS used by Stephen Hawking) lets you mark up individual syllables, and it even had a singing feature circa 1985.[1] It is indeed messy though. This is the example code to make it sing Happy Birthday: >DECtalk Software Sample Singing Program [:phoneme on] [hxae<300,10>piy<300,10> brr<600,12>th<100>dey<600,10> tuw<600,15> yu<1200,14>_<120>] [hxae<300,10>piy<300,10> brr<600,12>th<100>dey<600,10> tuw<600,17> yu<1200,15>_<120>] [hxae<300,10>piy<300,10> brr<600,22>th<100>dey<600,19>dih<600,15>rdeh<600,14&g;ktao<600,12>k_<120>_<120>] [hxae<300,20>piy<300,20> brr<600,19>th<100>dey<600,15> tuw<600,17> yu<1200,15>] --- [1] https://vt100.net/manx/details/1,1230 https://vt100.net/manx/details/1,1230 (92mb pdf so I won't link directly to it, but info on singing feature appears on p. 116 for the curious)

DonHopkins 4y ago
Here's a historic DECTalk Duet song from Peter Langston (which is actually quite lovely): Eedie & Eddie (And The Reggaebots) - Some Velvet Morning (Peter Langston) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0Ko1GUiSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0Ko1GUiSo Peter S. Langston - "Some Velvet Morning" (By Lee Hazelwood) - Performed By Eedie & Eddie And The Reggaebots http://www.wfmu.org/365/2003/169.shtml http://www.wfmu.org/365/2003/169.shtml Eedie & Eddie On The Wire http://www.langston.com/SVM.html http://www.langston.com/SVM.html Peter Langston's Home Page: http://www.langston.com/ http://www.langston.com/ His 1986 Usenix "2332" paper: http://www.langston.com/Papers/2332.pdf http://www.langston.com/Papers/2332.pdf How to use Eddie and Eedie to make free third party long distance phone calls (it's OK, Bellcore had as much free long distance phone service as they wanted to give away for free): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22308781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22308781 >My mom refused to get touch-tone service, in the hopes of preventing me from becoming a phone phreak. But I had my touch-tone-enabled friends touch-tone me MCI codes and phone numbers I wanted to call over the phone, and recorded them on a cassette tape recorder, which I could then play back, with the cassette player's mic and speaker cable wired directly into the phone speaker and mic. >Finally there was one long distance service that used speech recognition to dial numbers! It would repeat groups of 3 or 4 digits you spoke, and ask you to verify they were correct with yes or no. If you said no, it would speak each digit back and ask you to verify it: Was the first number 7? ... >The most satisfying way I ever made a free phone call was at the expense of Bell Communications Research (who were up to their ears swimming in as much free phone service as they possibly could give away, so it didn't hurt anyone -- and it was actually with their explicitly spoken consent), and was due to in-band signaling of billing authorization: When you called (201) 644-2332, it would answer, say "Hello," pause long enough to let the operator ask "Will you accept a collect call from Richard Nixon?", then it would say "Yes operator, I will accept the charges." And that worked just fine for third party calls too! >Peter Langston (working at Bellcore) created and wrote a classic 1985 Usenix paper about "Eedie & Eddie", whose phone number still rings a bell (in my head at least, since I called it so often): [...] >(201) 644-2332 or Eedie & Eddie on the Wire: An Experiment in Music Generation. Peter S Langston. Bell communications Research, Morristown, New Jersey. >ABSTRACT: At Bell Communications Research a set of programs running on loosely coupled Unix systems equipped with unusual peripherals forms a setting in which ideas about music may be "aired". This paper describes the hardware and software components of a short automated music concert that is available through the public switched telephone network. Three methods of algorithmic music generation are described.

DonHopkins 4y ago

Here's a historic DECTalk Duet song from Peter Langston (which is actually quite lovely): Eedie & Eddie (And The Reggaebots) - Some Velvet Morning (Peter Langston) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0Ko1GUiSo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1l0Ko1GUiSo Peter S. Langston - "Some Velvet Morning" (By Lee Hazelwood) - Performed By Eedie & Eddie And The Reggaebots http://www.wfmu.org/365/2003/169.shtml http://www.wfmu.org/365/2003/169.shtml Eedie & Eddie On The Wire http://www.langston.com/SVM.html http://www.langston.com/SVM.html Peter Langston's Home Page: http://www.langston.com/ http://www.langston.com/ His 1986 Usenix "2332" paper: http://www.langston.com/Papers/2332.pdf http://www.langston.com/Papers/2332.pdf How to use Eddie and Eedie to make free third party long distance phone calls (it's OK, Bellcore had as much free long distance phone service as they wanted to give away for free): https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22308781 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22308781 >My mom refused to get touch-tone service, in the hopes of preventing me from becoming a phone phreak. But I had my touch-tone-enabled friends touch-tone me MCI codes and phone numbers I wanted to call over the phone, and recorded them on a cassette tape recorder, which I could then play back, with the cassette player's mic and speaker cable wired directly into the phone speaker and mic. >Finally there was one long distance service that used speech recognition to dial numbers! It would repeat groups of 3 or 4 digits you spoke, and ask you to verify they were correct with yes or no. If you said no, it would speak each digit back and ask you to verify it: Was the first number 7? ... >The most satisfying way I ever made a free phone call was at the expense of Bell Communications Research (who were up to their ears swimming in as much free phone service as they possibly could give away, so it didn't hurt anyone -- and it was actually with their explicitly spoken consent), and was due to in-band signaling of billing authorization: When you called (201) 644-2332, it would answer, say "Hello," pause long enough to let the operator ask "Will you accept a collect call from Richard Nixon?", then it would say "Yes operator, I will accept the charges." And that worked just fine for third party calls too! >Peter Langston (working at Bellcore) created and wrote a classic 1985 Usenix paper about "Eedie & Eddie", whose phone number still rings a bell (in my head at least, since I called it so often): [...] >(201) 644-2332 or Eedie & Eddie on the Wire: An Experiment in Music Generation. Peter S Langston. Bell communications Research, Morristown, New Jersey. >ABSTRACT: At Bell Communications Research a set of programs running on loosely coupled Unix systems equipped with unusual peripherals forms a setting in which ideas about music may be "aired". This paper describes the hardware and software components of a short automated music concert that is available through the public switched telephone network. Three methods of algorithmic music generation are described.