Do you think espeak is the most suitable, or just a convenient example ?
A friend's commercial product used a system from Lernout & Houspie but it's
also something the current AI craze does moderately well (most of the time,
anyway..), often using an online server.
There are several open source choices too, as well as espeak and those
fairly expensive commercial systems.
I have collected a couple of external synths - A Votrax and a later DECTalk
than the one in your link. I understand these are also in demand by
musicians for their characteristic sound. I don't know if that's another
market for your idea - I would have thought a DAW would provide a good
environment for a software synth but they seem to like the DECTalk.
On Mon, Sep 15, 2025 at 7:52 AM Frank Ventura via cctalk <
cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
Hi all lovers of classic computing. As a blind lover
of yester-years
computers I would like to share some personal experiences. Starting in the
late ‘70s and continuing well into the early 21st century; us blind folks
happily plugged along on any number of Atari, Commodore, Apple, and
Microsoft DOS machines. While we considered it magic at the time; there
really was no magic to it just some simple science. We used external speech
synthesizers with names like Arctic, Double-Talk, DEC Talk, Vortex just to
name a few. The most common, and arguably the best was the venerable DEC
Talk Express (external) and its internal cousin the DEC TALK PC.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bPW2S4fZMJY
Here is the general theory:
https://www.listening.com/blog/speech-synthesis
But from the end user’s point they didn’t have to concern themselves with
that. In the case of the popular DECTalk Express the user merely needed to
connect the DecTalk to a DB9 serial port on their computer and direct
their screen reader software to it.
For blind lovers of vintage computing now the software screen readers are
still around in various Internet archives. Many have been released into the
public domain for use free of charge. An example of this is JAWS for DOS:
https://allinaccess.com/happ/
The challenge is that the supply of used external speech synthesizers has
or soon will be dried up. Unfortunately, as we get old and pass on many of
these units get thrown out. Consequently, the world of vintage computing
for us blind folks is coming to a close. What would once again, open up the
world of vintage computing to us blind folks is a recreation of an External
DECTalk Express. The way I can imagine this is that a Linux software speech
synthesizer, like ESpeak, could be running on a Raspberry Pie. The Pie
would have a USB to serial connection installed to allow for connection to
a DB9 serial port on the computer, which is what the screen readers expect.
So far all of that is off-the-shelf software and hardware. What would have
to be created is a software program that could be run on the Pie that would
listen for the text stream coming in from the serial port and then pass
that input along to the speech synthesizer which in turn could speak
through the headphone jack on the Pie.
This program would have to listen and respond to DECTalk control character
strings. They can be found at:
https://rmdir.de/~michael/DECtalk_Express/rongemma/volume.htm
And now for my plea for help. If there are any Linux/Pie developers that
would like to take on this project for the benefit of all blind vintage
computing enthusiasts, I would love to hear from you. I honestly don’t know
what fair compensation would be but I am sure some compensation could be
involved. Even if the fine folks here don’t want to get personally involved
I would love to hear opinions on the feasibility of this project as well as
suggestions.
Thanks
Frank
twoheartsinthedark(a)hotmail.com
Estimated parts list:
Raspberry Pie
https://www.amazon.com/CanaKit-Raspberry-Starter-Kit-PRO/dp/B0CRSNCJ6Y/ref=…
Speak speech synthesizer for Linux
https://espeak.sourceforge.net/download.html
USB to DB9 serial:
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Chipset
,DB9-Serial-Converter-Windows/dp/B0759HSLP1/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?crid=236I64S61EQUS&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.xWQsG3VO7IqOId9P7LqGZq38EEH2QvMypF3SndBiNDHWvPNKkkfgYzYA0pD41q3IjI2_ArJV46Wj27eBeQcyBdbW13HiUK_p3b4D_w3wOl3jRSF0UykqtRxJP_l1OKBvCNnI8Gk2f0DaY-xt74-p4WlZ7lZONme6W9bu9qLr_u7-TCe6V3k47ERRnKr1p4STS93i_tAK0u2UP-TBvMkG5QysadotCwOMGo-U-L19WG0.PCwoBg8nZ8_4xUSozrwGK9opLdpTM5qNhfSRaBgtyJU&dib_tag=se&keywords=USB%2Bto%2Bdb9%2Bserial&qid=1757878593&sprefix=usb%2Bto%2Bdb9%2Bserial%2Caps%2C154&sr=8-1-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&th=1<
https://www.amazon.com/Adapter-Chipset%EF%BC%8CDB9-Serial-Converter-Windows…