🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1993Jan26.045957.12738@netcom.com> harrym@netcom.com (Harry Myhre) writes:
>>What is it?
>>How do you get it?
>>Does it work with system 7?
>3) Don't know if it works with system 7, but I would imagine that
>if it's shipping commercially with 'The Talking Moose' that it does.
>No publisher in his right mind would distribute software these
>days that isn't system 7 compatible.

The precise answer to his third question is "barely".  It turns out that
the source code to Macintalk has been lost for many years (Apple bought
the binary program from a small company, which then proceeded to go bust
and disappear, leaving them with no source).  They were able to patch the
binary to keep up with small changes, but when System 7 came out, the
sound architecture was changed so much that Macintalk no longer really worked,
and the folks at Apple didn't feel like continuing any work on that turkey.
HOWEVER, the folks who do the Talking Moose managed to patch the binary to
make it work.  It isn't clear how much longer they'll be able to keep it
going as the System changes, but with luck, they won't have to:  Apple has
been promising a brand new speech-synthesis architecture (written by them,
so this time they can keep fixing it :-) for several months (in fact, I think
since System 7 came out).  The new speech-synthesizer is supposed to sound
much more like a natural voice (rather than, say, a Canadian moose with
nasal congestion :-).

There is an Apple Tech Note explaining this;  I forget which number.