Back in the 90's, Dectalk was put into most communication devices. These devices are used by disabled people who either have hard to understand speech, or no speech at all. However, no one was ever told that it could do anything but talk. The truth is, it will do anything you program it to do. Most people know it will sing, but it can also be programmed to act. It's beyond amazing what all Dectalk can do. Those of us that know how to program Dectalk, can't put it down because anything you can imagine, you can program this thing to do. It's fun, it's easy, and it's addicting. No other software can do what this does.
The genius that created this, Dennis Klatt, passed away in 1988. And as we move forward with technology the Dectalk that we all know and love won't run on many of the new platforms. So we who love the old 4.40 Dectalk are trying to keep it alive for as long as possible.
The Dectalk Speak Window still runs in Windows and can sing. It is very sad that many disabled people never knew what all Dectalk could do. How many people would have been singers? How many people would have been actors?
It was once said that the movie "Toy Story" was the first fully computer animated movie. Um, no it wasn't, because the voice overs were all human. Dectalk can meet all the requirements for voice overs. So if someone can learn Dectalk before it's totally gone, and if they can make the right connections in Hollywood, you could be part of a production that would most likely explode! It might even create a new synthetic category in the music awards. If this happens, anyone could become a synthetic singer and even create songs that are humanly impossible to sing.
If Dectalk is fading away, lets make it go out with a big bang in hopes that a new synthesizer will be created to take it's place.
