About the SynthProject

Welcome to the SynthProject site.
This page is managed by Patrick Perdue of PdAudio.net.

The point of SynthProject is to put as many samples of both hardware and software text-to-speech systems in one comprehensive, easily accessible resource.

Text-to-speech systems are used in various applications, including screen reading software for the visually impaired, calling centers, bus stations, airports, etc.
I, as a totally blind person, have always been fascinated by the different forms of speech output systems over the years.

In my early days of surfing the net, I looked in vaine for a website which had demos of some of the more popular hardware synthesizers, including doubletalk, accent, audapter, and others, but could not find such a site.
Either there were no demos available for a particular synthesizer, or pages that claimed to have them were down.

Years later, I own, or have owned many of the hardware text-to-speech systems used in combination with leading screen readers for Dos and Windows operating systems. Some of these speech systems were before my time, so I have put together this resource so that others who may also be interested in such things can have a place to turn for text-to-speech demos, a comprehensive list of online interactive TTS websites, etc.

Text-To-Speech demos

Here are demos and links to various text-to-speech systems.
hardware speech systems software-based speech systems

Hardware-based speech systems

These are demos of hardware synthesizers that I have either owned, or had access to, mostly recorded by me.

Aicom Accent SA circa 1989/1990: Accent power-up message with default parameters (Accent ready.)"
accent factory demo from the original floppy disk

Personal data Systems Audapter (1989 revision):
Audapter power-up message with default parameters (audapter system ready)
audapter reset to defaults
audapter internal demo
manually going through the audapter voice menu from front pannel controls

Blazie Engineering/Freedom Scientific products: braille 'n' speak 2000, June 2003 revision defaults
Braille 'n' speak 2000, spanish revision June 1999, default parameters
Braille hablado 2000 listo. Ayuda, uno pagina
Type 'n' speak, June 1997 revision defaults
braille lite m-20, revision 4.00 defaults
Braille lite m-40, February 2001 revision defaults
note: all legacy notetakers from Freedom Scientific BLV Group prior to the m-series were based on an artic speech chipset, while the m-series is based on the doubletalk from RC Systems. Freedom's newest notetaker line is based on eloquence from Eloquent Technologies, inc.

digital equipment Corporation - DECTalk Express: DECTalk express on AC power DECTalk Express on battery power
For authenticity, I have left the pause between DECTalk's initial boot and start of speech. During this time, DECTalk express runs internal test mode.
For more DECTalk stuff, please see the DECTalk page.

PulseData International Keynote SA (early 90's unit):
Keynote SA on AC power
Keynote SA on battery power

Microtalk Litetalk, rom revision 4.52, 1997
LiteTalk powerup message

American Printing House for the Blind pocketbraille, March 7, 1989 revision
Sending text through a half-working PocketBraille notetaker

GwMicro speakout, may 1995 revision
speakout on batteries, powerup message with default parameters
speakout's rather boring internal self-test

Automated Functions, Inc. smartalk, 1996 smartalk found on parallel port 1 by FindTalk.exe smartalk test message from Smartest.exe smartalk is brought to you by my ancient sharp 100 MHZ laptop running dos 6.22.

Don't Ask, inc. 1982 S.A.m. the Software Automatic Mouth a software synthesizer for Atari systems
.S.A.M. quoting the Gettysburg Address
S.A.M. talking about himself

Milestones of text to Speech Systems 1987 milestones of text-to-speech systems by Dennis Klatt

well, these are all the demos I currently have available. I'm currently looking for the following:

  • Pros 4000
  • Apple Macintalker2
  • Outspoken 1.7.5's internal synthesizer (coming soon)
  • Street Electronics Echo PC
  • Dolphin apollo 1 and 2, juno, etc.
  • Telesensory VertPlus
  • others that I may have forgotten, or not known about in the first place.

If you know where I can get any of these samples, please feel free to contact me at Patrick@PdAudio.net.

software-based TTS systems

Here are links to some interactive TTS demo sites.
AT&T Natural Voices Text-To-Speech Demos
Rhetorical R-Voice

WindBond USA TTS Demo Linguistics & Phonetics Worldwide
Ilan Speech
Pulse Interactive Demo
RealSpeak
Codovia
IBM Research
The MBROLA Project
The Festival TTS System
Svox Interactive Demo
Loquendo Actor5

If you have any sites to contribute, or find any broken links in this page, please send them to Me.

All content on these pages are copyright by their respective owners. Page last updated on 2/17/2005 at 10:31 AM EST