ScuzzBlog: Diaries March 2020
Entry 28th March 2020: Post 01: Amiga WB v1.1 Announce, SpeechToy, SAY.
Amiga WB v1.1 Announce, SpeechToy, SAY.
Having spent some time mucking around with older WB versions and
more specifically V1.1 for the Amiga 1000 I was intrigued as to
why SAY was not included. This took me to various discussions in
respect of 'SAY' and more specifically 'Announce' which was
basically ' SpeechToy '.
With the Utility missing I set about putting matters straight by
copying SAY and its component parts to the V1.1 disk.
The various discussions about SpeechToy pointed me to the Amiga
ROM Kernel Reference Manual by Robert Peck and specifically the
very wonderful Narrator Device.
This then took me to SpeechToy itself and Fish Disk 005 which had
the software on it. Plus Mandelbrot Self Squared Dragon Generator
by Robert S French and vastly enhanced with Intuition by R J Mical.
Next up I dragged out the A600HD as I intended checking her over
today anyway and mucked around for a while with a 5.25" floppy
drive for no other reason that I could. I then copied over all
of the SAY files and drawers plus tools to my WB v1.1 disk that
I created the other day. I also checked if it was working. Sadly
not, as it refused to boot on the A600 or A1200. Which led me to
realise I needed the Kickstart and the A1000.
So to the A1000 and again the disk didn't work. So I formatted
a blank disk actually on the Amiga 1000 and copied the WB v1.1
disk and then took it to the A1200 to add the files. That worked.
And so I was able to use the 'SAY' Utility with the Amiga 1000.
I then booted up the Fred Fish Disk No 005 and played around with
SpeechToy which is very much the same as SAY. My disks do not have
Announce so I cannot compare. I also added CrossDOS and Parnet
to the disk.
In the end I gave up customising the V1.1 disk as it served no
purpose as I really can't use the Amiga 1000 without a hard drive.
So I am back to 1.3 and the A500 which feels a ton better.
And so the mystery of Announce, its origins and formal inclusion
on Amiga releases is still a 'mystery'. Below is an article from
Rodney Hester which tries to explain some of the facts.
CLEAR AS MUD !!!
PS: The SCALA images are me testing the A600HD to see if she is
working OK. All was fine and now she is back safely in store.
[ Quote]
It is possible that Bruce Barrett at Commodore had called earlier
(or later) versions of SpeechToy "Announce", but extremely unlikely
they were ever distributed with AmigaDOS. Further evidence comes
from Rob Peck at Commodore, who included the following source code
comments in his source, speech.c (also from Fish disk 001):
/* Here is a sample speech demo program that compiles on
* Amiga (Lattice) C. It can be thought of as a stripped
* down version of the speechtoy (lucas). I haven't
* provided the graphics for the drawing of the mouth,
* but the access to the mouth variables is shown here.
*
* It is the sample program from the rev 1.1 Rom Kernel
* Manual, now at the printers.
*
* Rob Peck.
*
* This code may be freely utilized to create programs for the Amiga.
*/
It seems obvious that SpeechToy/Announce had its beginnings in the
AmigaOS 1.1 ROM Kernel Manual, and would therefore be extremely
unlikely to be packaged with AmigaDOS as 'production' code—it
apparently was seen very much as a "work in progress" at that
time, and never intended to supersede its limited (but "official")
cousin, Say (bundled with AmigaOS 1.1 through 2.05's 37.71).
Another revision to version 1.1 of SpeechToy appears on Fish disk 005,
but appears identical in function and appearance. The only
differences between SpeechToy and Announce (as your screenshot
indicates) are the 'Stop' button in SpeechToy, and the change from
'Rate' to 'Cadence'. It seems very likely that Announce was nothing
more than a European (a guess from the use of the term 'cadence')
hack/modification of early SpeechToy source posted to BIX/Compuserve
by David Lucas. This is all the more likely because of David's
comments from the later source:
/* Written by David M Lucas. */
/* This program Copyright (C) 1985 David Lucas */
/* This program is not to be sold for commercial gain. */
/* Use it as an example, and PIECES MAY BE PLAGIARIZED FREELY */
/* If you find something you don't like, fix it! Have fun! */
/* Send complaints to /dev/null. really. */
/* Thanks Amiga. */
He says you can plagiarize the source code freely. Commodore
didn't play that way. ;)
[ end quote - Contributed by Rodney Hester on October 25, 1999 ]
Big Thanks to Greg Donner
One last thing before I forget .. The older WB1.1 has this odd red
'X' symbol when you move icons around. The icon does not actually
move with the mouse over, it simply appears when you let go. Weird.
V I D E O S
SpeechToy
Amiga WB v1.1 Announce, SpeechToy, SAY.
That strange 'X' on screen when you move icons.
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