Text to Speech in DOS - Dr. SBAITSO

You look like you need a chat with someone about your problems. Don't worry, the entirely under-qualified Dr. Sbaitso is here to help! It's A.I. but only barely! Tell him about your problems, he'll get bored and want to talk about something else! Artificial Intelligence at its peak in 1992

[@jonathanomgitsme]

Thank you for making this. I was trying to explain to my daughter what the early text to speech platforms sounded like, and I had remembered software from my first sound card but not what it was called. There was also a command that used this same engine to read a text file to you, and I remember having it read some of the things I had written as a kid.

[@WoodyW2k]

This was great. Being from the UK and around a similar generation (I’m 42) I’m absolutely loving these blasts to the nostalgic past! Also love your curiosity and upbeat style. Keep it up!!

[@weirdoldtech]

Thanks Justin, that's got to be comment of the week and it's only Monday!

[@cdub1732]

Tip: you can put in a code called: >say (word) you can use this to make him say anything

[@text_mode]

I've just downloaded Dr Sbaitso in the web. "Doctor, I want to eat sand". He solemnly replied: "Sometimes I want to eat sand too" :)

[@weirdoldtech]

Hahaha! Hey we all want a bit of sand every now and again! Especially SANDWICHES! Ahem...tell the Doctor not to steal my joke!

[@rommix0]

Dr Sbaitso is based on First Byte's SmoothTalker 3 speech engine originally released for classic Macintosh.

[@weirdoldtech]

Oh nice! How does it compare? The Doctor is basically ChatGPT, but twice as good! I should compare inputting the same question in both actually! AHH a video idea!

[@rommix0]

@@weirdoldtech Well SmoothTalker 3 is just a text to speech program. Voices on both are exactly the same.

[@abmman]

Nice video. Good times!

[@ryanlester8252]

Now that was some weird old tech!

[@weirdoldtech]

Thanks Ryan! The Doctor will see you now!

[@crowsbridge]

I used to play with this for hours. I remember the parity error being a little different, though.

[@weirdoldtech]

Ah great! It took me ages to figure out how to trigger it, how do you remember it? Did you have the other things as demo's too? I remember the Talking Parrot, and the FMOrgan, but I haven't got either to work in dosbox yet!

[@crowsbridge]

@@weirdoldtech First he would give me a parity warning, then when it triggers the beep sound went on a for a while longer and he says something like 'don't do that again'. Maybe I'm remembering it wrong since I can't seem to find any examples online, but I sure did it a lot. I used to think it was funny to tell him you have dirty hands and his response was 'move your hands off my keyboard'.

[@weirdoldtech]

That tallies with my memory of it a bit more too, what a great tool! Dirty hands! It's a good job they weren't logging what we were all typing in!

[@ulle85]

Was there similar programs to this supporting PC-speaker instead / something like “realsound”?