Speakup & Speech Dispatcher

[Kirk Reiser]

Well Hello Hynek and all.  First of I apologize for the delay in
getting back to your letter and Tomas's as well.  I hope you all have
had a very nice holiday season.  I wouldn't mind hearing about some of
your Xmas traditions at some time.  I have really missed all of you
over the past few months.  I just wish I was better at correspondence
than I tend to be.  I also would like to be caught up on what you all
have been doing since our trip back in July.  Maybe we can have a
speak freely conference or something.

>I think we have to write some simple daemon application that would
>read the commands from /dev/softsynth and then send them to Speech
>Dispatcher in SSIP. It would act as a Speech Dispatcher client.

This is kind of what I was hoping for.  I have become more
knowledgable about the various software synths since I wrote Tomas and
have done a fair amount of work on Tuxtalk as well.  The issue of
getting the synth to shut-up as usual seems to be more of a problem
than getting it to talk! 'wink'

>This shouldn't be very difficult to write and I think I could do it
>myself relatively soon.

I didn't think is should be a very big job for anyone familiar with
the ssip and speech dispatcher protocols.

>I think maybe it would be easier and clearer to pass the commands
>directly in SSIP. It would also make the task of writing the interface
>daemon easier. Instead of creating your own command set.

That is a possibility I chose the DoubleTalk command set because I am
very comfortable with it not out of any conviction that it is a superior
control language.

>Also, I think that the Doubletalk protocol lacks some of the features
>supported by SSIP, mainly the priority system. Software synthesis
>is capable of doing more than the simple hardware devices and it would
>be great if we could use the most of what current technology offers
>(or just leave the doors open).

I am not that fluent with the ssip protocol specification so I can't
speak to the power or flexibility of one or the other.  The DoubleTalk
command set is quite extensive although I don't implement a lot of
it.  I mostly only include what is normal for basic communications
with the synthesizers.

I will happily outline the command set as I have implemented it if
that would be useful.  On the other hand I have no problem with
modifying it to use ssip if it can be used in as simple a manner as
what I have currently.

We had some discussions about this interfacing back in the summer and
as I indicated then, the kernel has no concept of priorities from an
output perspective.  So priorities would need to be imposed in an
external daemon or client interface or somewhere.

>Even if there is no direct use for priorities & history & sound icons
>right now in Speakup, it might come later. You told me that you are
>thinking about some application-specific customization of Speakup. When you
>implement it, Speakup will be able to distinguish different messages
>as less or more important and with the Doubletalk commands, you'll
>have to invent yet another command set.

That is definitely a future possibility.  I haven't really given it
much thought at this point so I can't say what we will want to do or
can do at that point.  Truthfully there are so many things which need
to be done that what I'd like to do right now is get a good working
solution for software synthesis and then put speakup to sleep for
awhile so I can work on other projects such as tuxtalk, awe and
javascript support for lynx.  You are all quite aware of all the tasks
which need attention.

>Well, obviously, I don't know if there isn't any major obstacle to using
>SSIP or it's derivative. Do you think it would be hard to replace the
>current Doubetalk commands with SSIP commands or it's just a matter
>of rewriting the strings here and there?

I think outlining the two command sets will clarify how easy it would
be to exchange ssip for the dtlk set.

>I'm CC-ing this message to address@hidden Maybe it would be
>easier to communicate here. You are invited to join by sending
>a mail to address@hidden .

I have subscribed and will continue the Cc:.

  Kirk