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 V3.x or 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 the Development 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 the Application Programming Interface (API) in the DECtalk Software Development kit to write applications 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 Programmer's Guide. The Programmer's Guide provides comprehensive information on using DECtalk Software APIs to develop your own text-to-speech applications. 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 not need this software if you are going to use DECtalk Software to produce synthesized speech that is directed to sound boards in the system. DECtalk Software for Digital UNIX User's Guide: This document contains information relevant to the Runtime subset of the DECtalk Software. It is mandatory to install this subset before attempting to install the Development subset. 1.2 New Features DECtalk Software V4.2A Development subset has the following new features: 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. It is no longer necessary to specify OUTPUT_TO_MME_DEVICE in calls to the TextToSpeechStartup() function when using the Multimedia Services for Digital UNIX product with the DECtalk Software 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/DTKDEV420/docs/html if you choose to install the DTKDEVDOC420 subset. You can invoke the document by opening the file: /usr/opt/DTKDEV420/docs/html/DtkDevGuide.html 1.3 Software Dependencies Please make sure that the following subsets are present and verify their versions before installing DECtalk Software Development Kit. Digital UNIX V3.x or V4.0. The Multimedia Services for Digital UNIX V2.0 The Real-time shared library. The DECtalk Software Runtime Kit V4.2A 1.4 Kit Installation 1.4.1 Kit location DECtalk Software Runtime kit and Development kit are released as part of the Consolidated Distribution CD-ROM. The DECtalk Software Runtime kit is also released as a part of Digital UNIX V4.0, the subsets can be found on the Associated Products CD-ROM. 1.4.2 Installation Procedure To install DECtalk Software Development subset use the following instructions: Check to see if you have any previous versions of the DECtalk Software Development subset. To do this log into a root account and type: # /usr/sbin/setld -i | grep DTKDEV 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 DTKDEV420 Development Kit. DTKDEVDOC420 Programmer's Guide. DTKDEVRELNOT420 Release Notes. DTKDEVSAMP420 Sample C source code. Make sure that all pre-requisite 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 DTKDEV420 in /usr/opt directory tree. All the files installed by DECtalk Software 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 can be 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 where valid DECtalk Software component names are: Component name Description DTKDEV420 Development Kit. DTKDEVDOC420 Programmer's Guide. DTKDEVRELNOT420 Release Notes. DTKDEVSAMP420 Sample C source code. 1.5 Restrictions 1) On-line help in the Bookreader format is not provided any longer. The DECtalk Software Programmer's Guide is now available in HTML, PostScript and text formats. To view the Programmer's Guide in HTML you can use any browser that is capable of handling HTML. 2) 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. 2-a) 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] 2-b) 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. 3) 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'. 4) The in-line voice control command [:phoneme on] is equivalent to [:phoneme arpabet on]. 5) 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. 6) 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] 1.7 Known Problems 1. Problem with 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.