Luciano,
If you are interested to "primitivize" parts of your TTS framework using the CCodeGenerator of Squeak I can help you (we can use my VM-PlugIn framework to insolate the TTS code from main Interpreter).
Ale.

Luciano,
Si queres puedo darte una mano para escribir la parte lenta del TTS como un plugIn de la VM (implementando las partes de tu TTS como un plugIn de la VM podemos ser independientes de la version de maquina virtual Squeak).
Ale.

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Desde: 	Paul Fernhout[SMTP:kfsoft at netins.net]
Enviado el: 	Martes 28 de Abril de 1998 23:48
Para: 	squeak at cs.uiuc.edu
Asunto: 	Re: speech synthesis

Luciano Esteban Notarfrancesco wrote:
> I have roughly implemented -enterely in Squeak- a synthesizer based
> upon rsynth (Klatt cascade/parallel filter bank synthesizer and
> rule-based text to phonemes translator), but it's just an > experiment...

Wow! 

Rsynth is public domain I believe. Do you have any plans to put your
work with it under the Squeak license (or something similar)?  If so,
I'd be interested in helping out as a tester or with comments related to
getting it to work efficiently or better under Squeak.  

We have a Delphi product (an interactive story authoring system called
StoryHarp) which I'd like to see in Squeak (we almost wrote it in Squeak
in the first place). It uses speech recognition and text-to-speech
(although the speech recognition is not as essential). 

A native Squeak test-to-speech (TTS) system would be much easier to
manage across multiple platforms than an API w/ primitives to call out
to platform dependent TTS systems. 

> the quality is pour and it's very slow. I'd like to do something in the
> diphone concatenation direction (just like Festival does, for instance).

How slow is it? What system (processor/speed/memory) are you running it
on? Is it as understandable as the original rsynth itself? Are there
specific Squeak speed related problems (like clicking or drop outs or
stuttering) that could be worked around?

Is it possible to use the Smalltalk->C translator to take your work and
build it into the VM (like some current sound primitives)? It would have
to be written with the translator restrictions in mind, or the
translator would have to be expanded to support it.

Festival is only free for non-commercial use I believe. If you used that
code directly, your work could not be part of the general Squeak
distribution under the Squeak license (although I guess it could be
distributed as an add on).

> I'd like to know of other people working in the same thing for Squeak,
> if there are any.

I'd be very interested in finding this out too. 

I've looked at linking Squeak to SAPI and Microsoft Agent under Windows
via Squeak primitives -- but that would just provides access to external
TTS and SR systems. I did not get anything working though because I
decided to use Delphi instead. I don't know much about implementing TTS
or SR engines themselves, but I've done some signal processing stuff for
machine vision and acoustic positioning.

It may sound silly, but TTS is a real whiz-bang feature that would
attract more attention to Squeak. People are very excited by Macintalk
on the Newton for example. Also, I've heard one can also use a good TTS
system to generate wave forms to use as the basis of a speech
recognition algorithm. Your work could enable a lot of really neat
stuff.

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software 
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the Garden with Insight(TM) garden simulator
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com