DECtalk Software for Digital UNIX V4.2A Release Notes This document summarizes the enhancements, performance considerations, known problems, and restrictions for the DECtalk Software for Digital UNIX Version V4.2A product. Revision/Update Information: Revised March 1996 Operating System and Version: Digital UNIX V4.0 Software Version: DECtalk Software Version V4.2A for Digital UNIX Digital Equipment Corporation Maynard, Massachusetts March 1996 The information in this document is subject to change without notice and should not be construed as a commitment by Digital Equipment Corporation. Digital Equipment Corporation assumes no responsibility for any errors that may appear in this document. The software described in this document is furnished under a license and may be used or copied only in accordance with the terms of such license. No responsibility is assumed for the use or reliability of software on equipment that is not supplied by Digital Equipment Corporation or its affiliated companies. Restricted Rights: Use, duplication, or disclosure by the U.S. Government is subject to restrictions as set forth in subparagraph (c)(1)(ii) of the Rights in Technical Data and Computer Software clause at DFARS 252.227-7013, or in FAR 52.227-19, or in FAR 52.227-14 Alt. III as applicable. Copyright Digital Equipment Corporation 1996. All Rights Reserved. Printed in U.S.A. The following are trademarks of Digital Equipment Corporation: DECtalk, DECnet, DECterm, DECwindows, DECwrite, VAXstation, VMS and the DIGITAL logo. Motif is a registered trademark of Open Software Foundation, Inc. Contents 1.1 PREFACE 1.2 NEW FEATURES 1.3 SOFTWARE DEPENDENCIES 1.4 KIT INSTALLATION 1.4.1 KIT LOCATION 1.4.2 INSTALLATION PROCEDURE 1.4.3 POST INSTALLATION PROCEDURES 1.4.4 DEINSTALLING DECTALK SOFTWARE 1.5 RESTRICTIONS 1.6 DOCUMENTATION UPDATES 1.7 KNOWN PROBLEMS 1.1 Preface This document contains release notes for Runtime subset of the DECtalk Software Version 4.2A for Digital UNIX. DECtalk Software is a text to speech program used to create digitally synthesized speech from ASCII text files. This document is for all users who want to use applications provided with the DECtalk Software Runtime kit to produce synthesized speech on Digital UNIX. In addition to these release notes, the DECtalk Software documentation set also contains the DECtalk Software for Digital UNIX User's Guide. The User's Guide provides comprehensive information on invoking and using DECtalk Software applications to produce synthesized speech from text. Other related documents include: Multimedia Services for Digital UNIX Installation Guide: This document contains information relevant to the multimedia extensions for Digital UNIX which enable your programs to playback audio on sound boards. You will need this software to playback synthesized speech on the sound boards in your system. DECtalk Software for Digital UNIX Programmer's Guide: This document contains information relevant to the Development subset of the DECtalk Software. Install this if you are going to develop your own DECtalk Software applications. 1.2 New Features DECtalk Software V4.2A has the following new features: You can now run one copy of any DECtalk Software application without requiring a license. You will need a license to run more than one copy of a DECtalk Software application concurrently or to run several different DECtalk Software applications concurrently. Two new unsupported sample programs are included: DECface is a computer-generated, synthetic face that synchronizes facial movements to synthesized speech provided by DECtalk. As DECtalk generates speech, DECface displays the facial expressions of a modeled face speaking those words. Information on how to invoke and use DECface is in the /usr/opt/DTKRT420/decface/docs subdirectory or in the DECface man page. Emacspeak uses text-to-speech extensively to provide emacs with access for the visually impaired. Emacspeak is a context sensitive emacs extension that intelligently reads the contents displayed on a screen rather than just scanning the screen and literally reading characters off the screen. Information on how to use emacspeak is provided in the /usr/opt/DTKRT420/emacspeak/docs subdirectory and in the emacspeak man page. Support for CDE desktop environment. To access DECtalk Software with CDE icons install the subset DTKRTCDE420 your Digital Alpha workstation. DECtalk Software sample programs are installed in the Multimedia folder in the Application Manager. Documentation for DECtalk Software is provided in HTML format. You can use the Netscape( browser to read the document. HTML files are installed in the /usr/opt/DTKRT420/docs/html if you choose to install the DTKRTDOC420 subset. You can invoke the document by opening the file: /usr/opt/DTKRT420/docs/html/DtkUsersGuide.html The audio device is now automatically opened when there is audio to play and is automatically closed when there is no audio to play. The in-line play command, that is used to play wave audio files, will now play audio files that contain audio data in formats supported by both the Multimedia Services software and the system's audio hardware option. 1.3 Software Dependencies DECtalk Software V4.2A requires Digital UNIX V4.0 and Multimedia Services for Digital UNIX V2.0. DECtalk Software V4.2A also requires that the Real-time shared library be installed. Please make sure that these subset is present before installing DECtalk Software. 1.4 Kit Installation 1.4.1 Kit location The kit is released as a part of Digital UNIX V4.0, the subsets can be found on the Associated Products CD-ROM. DECtalk Software is also released as part of the Consolidated Distribution CD-ROM. 1.4.2 Installation Procedure To install DECtalk Software Runtime subset use the following instructions: Check to see if you have any previous versions of the DECtalk Software Runtime subset. To do this log into a root account and type: # /usr/sbin/setld -i | grep DTKRT De-install any previous versions of DECtalk Software installed on your system. To de-install DECtalk Software, type: # /usr/sbin/setld -d where valid DECtalk Software Development subset component names are: Component name Description DTKRT420 Runtime Kit. DTKRTDOC420 Runtime Users Guide. DTKRTRELNOT420 Release Notes. DTKDFCRT420 DECface. DTKEMSRT420 Emacspeak. DTKRTCDE420 CDE Integration subset. Make sure that all prerequisite software is installed. Make sure that mmeserver is running. Install the kit by typing: # cd # /usr/sbin/setld -l . Answer the questions regarding the installation of the various components and pick the ones you wish to install. The installation procedure creates a subdirectory called DTKRT420 in /usr/opt directory tree. All the files installed by DECtalk Software runtime subset can be found in this subdirectories. The installation procedure creates soft links from these files. 1.4.3 Post Installation Procedures After installing DECtalk Software successfully, you may choose to run the Installation Verification Procedure (IVP). In order to run the IVP, login into a root account and type, # /usr/sbin/setld -v DTKRT420 and listen on the audio device for the audio message indicating a successful installation. Make sure a headphone or amplifier and speakers are connected and that the software volume control is set. The application "audiocontrol" that is part of the Multimedia Services kit is used to set the volume. 1.4.4 Deinstalling DECtalk Software To de-install DECtalk, log into a root account and type: # /usr/sbin/setld -d Valid DECtalk Software Runtime component names are: Component name Description DTKRT420 Runtime Kit. DTKRTDOC420 Runtime Users Guide. DTKRTRELNOT420 Release Notes. DTKDFCRT420 DECface. DTKEMSRT420 Emacspeak. DTKRTCDE420 CDE Integration subset. 1.5 Restrictions DECtalk Software most closely resembles the DECtalk family of Products DECtalk PC DTC07. There are some behavioral differences between DTC07 and earlier versions of DECtalk - DTC01, DTC03, and DTC05. As a result of these differences in behavior some of the in-line commands from older scripts will need to be modified. In what follows these changes are outlined. Due to differences between versions of hardware DECtalk, the following command does not work as it would on the DTC03. [:phoneme arpabet speak on] [:nh_<200>r] To fix this problem, use a space to separate the DECtalk voice-commands. For example: [:phoneme arpabet speak on] [:nh _<200>r] Due to differences between versions of hardware DECtalk, the following command does not work as it would on the DTC03. The old alternate pronunciation control character was '/'. This no longer is used. Use a [:pron alt] to obtain an alternative pronunciation for a word listed in the Homograph table of Appendix C. For example, the primary pronunciation of the word wind is w'ihnd, as in 'the wind is blowing'. The secondary pronunciation, denoted by [:pron alt]wind, is w'aynd, as in 'wind up the top'. The in-line voice control command [:phoneme on] is equivalent to [:phoneme arpabet on]. The escape sequences which were used to control previous hardware versions of DECtalk will NOT work in DECtalk Software. These escape sequences will not be spoken and will be discarded. The following voice control commands which are provided in previous hardware versions of DECtalk are not supported in this release of DECtalk Software. They will be reported as command errors. [:flush] [:enable] [:timeout] [:digitized] [:remove] [:type] 1.6 Documentation Updates Use a [:pron alt] to obtain an alternative pronunciation for a word listed in the Homograph table of Appendix C. For example, the primary pronunciation of the word wind is w'ihnd, as in 'the wind is blowing'. The secondary pronunciation, denoted by [:pron alt]wind, is w'aynd, as in 'wind up the clock'. Unlike previous versions of DECtalk Software products, the in-line pause command is a synchronous command. This means that all text processing which occurs after the pause is not processed until the pause time is exceeded. 1.7 Known Problems 1. Problem in in-line synchronization: Synchronization around digits does not work properly. So, for example, the following string: [:volume set 0] speak this 1 2 3 [:volume set 99] 4 5 6 test. will be spoken as: 1 2 3 4 5 6 test. Instead of: 4 5 6 test. 2. Problem in DECface (an unsupported application) Pressing the Stop button while DECface is in the middle of speaking a sentence and pressing the Play button quickly following that in the unsupported application DECface causes it to loose synchronization. A work around for this problem is to wait for a few seconds after pressing the Stop button before pressing the Play button again.