Mac OS 10.1 Speech Emulator

[billierios]

Is there an emulator I can get of just the OS 10.1 (or whatever OS, but optimally 10.1) speech engine? Like, just the text-to-speech or something. And for Windows. And legal.

[adespoton]

Is there an emulator I can get of just the OS 10.1 (or whatever OS, but optimally 10.1) speech engine? Like, just the text-to-speech or something. And for Windows. And legal.

That's not quite how any of this works.

The good news is, Mac OS 9 uses the same MacinTalk voice synthesis as OS X 10.0, 10.1 and 10.2. OS X 10.0 and 10.1 are essentially beta products with bad performance on real hardware; audio skips and stutters all over the place under emulation.

Your best option is probably to set up SheepShaver with Mac OS 9.0.4. You'll have to provide your own legal copy of the 9.0.4 install CD image.

The alternative solution is to run QEMU-system-PPC-screamer (the custom builds supplied on here) with OS X 10.2. This may result in some stuttering.

With OS X 10.2 - 10.6, you also have the option to run Apple's awesome Repeat After Me tool, which allows you to enter some text, record someone speaking that text, and have MacIntalk parse out the inflections, tone, pacing, etc. so it can then speak (or sing) the same text in any of the MacinTalk voices from the original Fred that came with the Macintosh Plus right through to the higher quality MacinTalk Plus voices. Unfortunately, Repeat After Me hinting isn't compatible with the modern voices used in macOS.