StorySqueak

Paul Fernhout kfsoft at netins.net
Mon Apr 6 20:20:47 UTC 1998


Squeakers -

We just finished a system called StoryHarp for creating interactive
stories operated by voice with text-to-speeech, sound, and music output.
We prototyped parts of this system in Squeak, but delivered it in Delphi
for Win95/NT for various reasons. I though I'd list these reasons, as
they are more or less future directions I'd like to see Squeak go, and
I'd appreciate any help you can offer in getting Squeak moving in those
directions.

* Squeak does not yet have built in text-to-speech. A Squeak based TTS
engine would be great. There are implemetations I know of available for
non-commercial use written in C++. Anyone know of a Smalltalk based
text-to-speech system? Could we get Apple to release Macintalk source
for use in Squeak?

* Squeak does not have speech recognition built in (although it does
have sound input). Again, anyone know of Smalltalk base SR software?
We'd be content with something fairly simple.  We don't need dictation
capabilities. Ideally it would use the TTS system to generate waveforms
for phrases and choose a nearest match from what the person said (which
I believe is how the earliest working SR systems worked anyway -- as I
heard it way back from my college advisor, on the first SR-TTS project
the TTS group got done first and then scooped the SR group).

I know we could link Squeak to SR and TTS engines via calls to native
code, as we did with the Delphi app which uses Microsoft Agent and a SR
and TTS engine. But we'd really like an all-Squeak solution. The
advantage to using Squeak for this is the cross platform portability.
Since we now have a big chunk of the market covered with a Win95/NT
solution, we'd like a Squeak implementation to cover almost *all* the
other platforms for one investment. Also, it creates installation issues
if a product requires other products to function. As an alternative to
having Squeak do SR and TTS, maybe there could be a standard API
interface to TTS and SR engines from Squeak that was supported by all
platforms?

* Our prototype GUI in Squeak looks really lame because we used standard
ST-80 components. Morphic was just too slow and also somewhat incomplete
(although MVC is too awkward -- this from someone who started using MVC
over eight years ago). Squeak really needs a crisp set of widgets
analogous to TK. Ideally, they would be prototype based, like Newton
widgets.

* We wanted to embed Squeak in the product, but the current Squeak
development interface is too confusing for novices. StoryHarp supports
macros we want to link to specific bits of Smalltalk code. We need a
simpler front end and debugger for programming in Squeak, which hides
both the power and complexity of Squeak until the end user needs it.
(Maybe sort of like LearningWorks). We also want to have a minimum
footprint Squeak with only the components we absolutely need, with the
rest loadable on demand.

Please don't take these as gripes. StoryHarp improved greatly from its
time as a Squeak app (you'll see the browser influence immediately). It
was touch and go a few months back as we almost went straight ahead with
a Squeak version instead of a Delphi version. We just got cold feet and
decided to take a safe route first. Now that something is working, we
can think about being more ambitious for a version two.

-Paul Fernhout
Kurtz-Fernhout Software 
=========================================================
Developers of custom software and educational simulations
Creators of the StoryHarp(TM) Audioventure Authoring System
http://www.kurtz-fernhout.com





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