5 ms·

https://archive.org/details/Trope_Trainer_Kinnor_Software_Inc._Version_3.2_2005 https://archive.org/details/Trope_Trainer_Kinnor_Software_In... thank you Jason

by rendx 4y ago

https://archive.org/details/Trope_Trainer_Kinnor_Software_Inc._Version_3.2_2005 https://archive.org/details/Trope_Trainer_Kinnor_Software_In... thank you Jason Scott! :) Maybe someone wants to try to get this to work in a VM (or Wine even), report back (and email the author of the article if successful)?

calibas 4y ago
The CD says making unauthorized copies are a violation of copyright and Torah law...
- sterlind 4y ago
  I think it should be okay, even a mitzvah, to preserve the program since preserving knowledge of the Torah is hefsed merubeh when it's in real danger of being lost. but I'd definitely want to heck with the rabbi he was working with first. but even if the copyright status is murky there's enough sofek and it's for a good purpose. (disclaimer: not actually Jewish)
Animats 4y ago
Yes, archive.org has an .iso file. Someone posted an activation code for the program there. Windows 7 programs should run fine under Wine on Linux. So if anybody really wants to run this, it shouldn't be hard. But listening to chanting from DECtalk? Here's "Happy Birthday" via DECtalk.[1] There was apparently a 90s thing for religious DECtalk files. Here's an archive of them.[2] Here's "The Old Rugged Cross" in DECtalk input format.[3] This mysterious program that represented so much work is probably mostly a DECtalk player and a big collection of playable religious DECtalk files. If someone were to extract the files, that would recover the content. There are players for DECtalk files; there's one at the links below. Converting them to a better text-to-speech system would help. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150310175636/http://theflameofhope.co/free/HAPPY%20BIRTHDAY.mp3 https://web.archive.org/web/20150310175636/http://theflameof... [2] http://theflameofhope.co/SONGS%20FOR%20PC'.html http://theflameofhope.co/SONGS%20FOR%20PC'.html [3] http://theflameofhope.co/dectalk%20speak%20window/GOSPEL/OLD%20RUGGED%20CROSS%20-%20HYMN.EN http://theflameofhope.co/dectalk%20speak%20window/GOSPEL/OLD...
- neilv 4y ago
  For anyone who doesn't know, DECtalk didn't always sound like that Happy Birthday song. Think more like Stephen Hawking. I got to play with DECtalk around 1999, when it was already old, and IIRC required us dusting off an old SGI workstation that could run it in software. We had a school homework assignment to hand-tune DECtalk encodings of famous lines of speeches by US statesmen, for dramatic delivery. "Essential liberty", "shall not perish from the earth!" etc. Prosody, stress, etc.
- mwcampbell 4y ago
  But didn't the article say that this software used a customized version of DECtalk with Hebrew phonemes and finer pitch control?
- nl 4y ago
  > This mysterious program that represented so much work is probably mostly a DECtalk player and a big collection of playable religious DECtalk files. If someone were to extract the files, that would recover the content. The programmer who was doing the DECTalk work talked about this some: > I ask Schnee if Buchler’s source code could be reconstructed from a copy of the software. > Not exactly, she says. It might be possible to induce the machine code to dump out a database of every phoneme it had ever uttered — all the tiny pieces it had used to sing Armenian and Lithuanian and Egyptian trope — and then, if you were very patient and very skilled, you might be able to write code to piece them back together. > It could be done, she says. But it wouldn’t be quick or easy. And it wouldn’t be the same program Buchler wrote. There's also a sound file of their implementation at the bottom of the article.
  - lph 4y ago
    That quote from Schnee seems odd to me. I mean, what do you get if you try to decompile the binary? That output should be more useful than "a database of every phoneme it had ever uttered". And, as someone else pointed out in this thread, there exists an ISO and an activation code at archive.org, and it should be possible to get this running in Wine or in a VM. Someone clever could probably patch the binary to make it run on modern Windows. The distraught rabbis should community-source a developer. All of that said, even if the source code were to be found, it seems likely that further development of the core functionality might be dead. This was a man's life's work in an esoteric domain; it might not exactly be accessible code.
classichasclass 4y ago
"Please do not make copies of this CD to give to others. It is a violation of copyright and Torah law. Not intended for use on Shabbat or Holidays."
- microtherion 4y ago
  Ah, it's not like the G-d of the Torah is known to be vengeful, is he?
  - WJW 4y ago
    AFAIK the scriptures contain zero instances of divine retribution for copyright infringement.
- rendx 4y ago
  Good thing it is merely a copy of the contents of the CD, not of the CD itself!
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  I'd love to see the what the Torah says on copyright infringement.
  - schoen 4y ago
    Somewhat related: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3355&context=penn_law_review https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl... I have a book that makes an argument from Halakha that copyright is a binding norm under Jewish law, but I feel like it's kind of motivated reasoning because copyright as we know it is a 1700s British invention and there's no likelihood that any Jewish communities observed anything directly equivalent to it before that. There's an additional principle of Jewish law that says that Jews should normally obey secular laws of the places where they live: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_d%27malkhuta_dina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_d%27malkhuta_dina Maybe the warning on the CD is indirectly alluding to that?

by rendx 4y ago

calibas 4y ago

The CD says making unauthorized copies are a violation of copyright and Torah law...

sterlind 4y ago
I think it should be okay, even a mitzvah, to preserve the program since preserving knowledge of the Torah is hefsed merubeh when it's in real danger of being lost. but I'd definitely want to heck with the rabbi he was working with first. but even if the copyright status is murky there's enough sofek and it's for a good purpose. (disclaimer: not actually Jewish)

Animats 4y ago

Yes, archive.org has an .iso file. Someone posted an activation code for the program there. Windows 7 programs should run fine under Wine on Linux. So if anybody really wants to run this, it shouldn't be hard. But listening to chanting from DECtalk? Here's "Happy Birthday" via DECtalk.[1] There was apparently a 90s thing for religious DECtalk files. Here's an archive of them.[2] Here's "The Old Rugged Cross" in DECtalk input format.[3] This mysterious program that represented so much work is probably mostly a DECtalk player and a big collection of playable religious DECtalk files. If someone were to extract the files, that would recover the content. There are players for DECtalk files; there's one at the links below. Converting them to a better text-to-speech system would help. [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20150310175636/http://theflameofhope.co/free/HAPPY%20BIRTHDAY.mp3 https://web.archive.org/web/20150310175636/http://theflameof... [2] http://theflameofhope.co/SONGS%20FOR%20PC'.html http://theflameofhope.co/SONGS%20FOR%20PC'.html [3] http://theflameofhope.co/dectalk%20speak%20window/GOSPEL/OLD%20RUGGED%20CROSS%20-%20HYMN.EN http://theflameofhope.co/dectalk%20speak%20window/GOSPEL/OLD...

neilv 4y ago
For anyone who doesn't know, DECtalk didn't always sound like that Happy Birthday song. Think more like Stephen Hawking. I got to play with DECtalk around 1999, when it was already old, and IIRC required us dusting off an old SGI workstation that could run it in software. We had a school homework assignment to hand-tune DECtalk encodings of famous lines of speeches by US statesmen, for dramatic delivery. "Essential liberty", "shall not perish from the earth!" etc. Prosody, stress, etc.
mwcampbell 4y ago
But didn't the article say that this software used a customized version of DECtalk with Hebrew phonemes and finer pitch control?
nl 4y ago
> This mysterious program that represented so much work is probably mostly a DECtalk player and a big collection of playable religious DECtalk files. If someone were to extract the files, that would recover the content. The programmer who was doing the DECTalk work talked about this some: > I ask Schnee if Buchler’s source code could be reconstructed from a copy of the software. > Not exactly, she says. It might be possible to induce the machine code to dump out a database of every phoneme it had ever uttered — all the tiny pieces it had used to sing Armenian and Lithuanian and Egyptian trope — and then, if you were very patient and very skilled, you might be able to write code to piece them back together. > It could be done, she says. But it wouldn’t be quick or easy. And it wouldn’t be the same program Buchler wrote. There's also a sound file of their implementation at the bottom of the article.
- lph 4y ago
  That quote from Schnee seems odd to me. I mean, what do you get if you try to decompile the binary? That output should be more useful than "a database of every phoneme it had ever uttered". And, as someone else pointed out in this thread, there exists an ISO and an activation code at archive.org, and it should be possible to get this running in Wine or in a VM. Someone clever could probably patch the binary to make it run on modern Windows. The distraught rabbis should community-source a developer. All of that said, even if the source code were to be found, it seems likely that further development of the core functionality might be dead. This was a man's life's work in an esoteric domain; it might not exactly be accessible code.

classichasclass 4y ago

"Please do not make copies of this CD to give to others. It is a violation of copyright and Torah law. Not intended for use on Shabbat or Holidays."

microtherion 4y ago
Ah, it's not like the G-d of the Torah is known to be vengeful, is he?
- WJW 4y ago
  AFAIK the scriptures contain zero instances of divine retribution for copyright infringement.
rendx 4y ago
Good thing it is merely a copy of the contents of the CD, not of the CD itself!
RobotToaster 4y ago
I'd love to see the what the Torah says on copyright infringement.
- schoen 4y ago
  Somewhat related: https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=3355&context=penn_law_review https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?articl... I have a book that makes an argument from Halakha that copyright is a binding norm under Jewish law, but I feel like it's kind of motivated reasoning because copyright as we know it is a 1700s British invention and there's no likelihood that any Jewish communities observed anything directly equivalent to it before that. There's an additional principle of Jewish law that says that Jews should normally obey secular laws of the places where they live: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_d%27malkhuta_dina https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dina_d%27malkhuta_dina Maybe the warning on the CD is indirectly alluding to that?