Why did commodore stop including speech synthesis?

[Calabazam]

What about the speech synthesis in some games like Maupiti Island? Lankhor made it sound like French in the French version of the game, so does it use a special translator.library or another narrator.device?

[Nightfox]

The latest translator.library v43 from aminet lets you specify different accents saved in LOCALE:accents

[Calabazam]

Unfortunately, there is no french accent available, so it seems.
I wonder what might be hacked from Lankhor talkie games.

[Nightfox]

These accent files are pretty much just human crafted text files. I guess they could have created one or had their own translator.library

[Thomas Richter]

They are, and I updated mine for german. The problem is that the narrator.device is hardcoded to english pnonems, and some of them are simply missing. There is no German R, no German Ü and no German CH (actually, there are two CH phonems in German). Thus, the narrator still sounds like an American attempting to speak German, and not like a German voice.

[robinsonb5]

Originally Posted by Thomas Richter

...they were very surprised that CBM even included it in 2.0, and even more so, had the source code - which was not licensed to CBM at all. CBM only had a binary license, and they did not re-new it for 2.0. Thus, what is included in 2.0 is most likely there on error, and CBM noticed and did not ship it anymore.

What's interesting is that the version shipped with Workbench 2 sounds quite different from the version shipped with WB1.3 - to my ear it sounds like a newer and better synthesizer rather than just different settings to the same engine:

[James]

Originally Posted by Calabazam

Unfortunately, there is no french accent available, so it seems.

https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/ax_0Paris

[Bren McGuire]

is there any youtube video showing this french speech synthesis? i tried to look for it and found nothing. i never heard these voices would like to

Originally Posted by Calabazam

What about the speech synthesis in some games like Maupiti Island? Lankhor made it sound like French in the French version of the game, so does it use a special translator.library or another narrator.device?

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bren McGuire

is there any youtube video showing this french speech synthesis? i tried to look for it and found nothing. i never heard these voices would like to

[ Show youtube player ]
Around 2:28 you can hear the French speech synthesis.

[gimbal]

Not too bad actually.

[Bren McGuire]

thats amazing does sound like a different voice though, is it really the built-in speech synthesis?

Originally Posted by TCD

[ Show youtube player ]
Around 2:28 you can hear the French speech synthesis.

[TCD]

Originally Posted by Bren McGuire

thats amazing does sound like a different voice though, is it really the built-in speech synthesis?

I really don't know. Maybe one of the coding folk could have look at it.

[Thomas Richter]

Originally Posted by saimon69

The old os 7 Apple speech extension did sound similar - was developed by softVoice too?

Yes, that and S.A.M. on the C64 and the Atari 8bits, all products from Softvoice.

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by James

https://aminet.net/package/util/libs/ax_0Paris

Thanks, going to look into this.

[Calabazam]

Originally Posted by TCD

[ Show youtube player ]
Around 2:28 you can hear the French speech synthesis.

I had better (more natural) memories of this. Still seems tweaked to sound more french compared to the native speech synthesis built in the OS2.04 i used at the time.