Macintalk installation?

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Brenton
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Macintalk installation?

Post by Brenton »

Hi guys,

For the past couple of hours I have been pulling my hair out trying to work out how to install Macintalk 3.

I only just discovered Mini vMac tonight and I watched this YouTube video which was very helpful: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0JPFFrELdlg

...however I cannot work out how to install the apps5.dsk. It seems to want to install the contents to the apps5 disk itself and I cannot see a way to specify that I would like it installed to the system6 disk.

Could someone please run me through step-by-step how to install Macintalk? It would be greatly appreciated.

I have been wanting to use Macintalk for well over 10 years now and tonight has been the first glimmer of hope, lol.

Thank you in advance, guys.
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adespoton
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by adespoton »

drag the dsk file over the Mini vMac "screen" window to mount it.
Brenton
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by Brenton »

The apps5.dsk? Tried that already.
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Ronald P. Regensburg
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by Ronald P. Regensburg »

Maybe you are confused by the, not so obvious, dialog in System 6. The top text box in the dialog is in fact a drop down menu that enables you to start navigating to other disks.
thecloud
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by thecloud »

The OP mentions Macintalk 3. In a previous thread here, it was noted that Macintalk 3 requires a newer processor than is emulated by Mini vMac. I think you would need to find the original Macintalk or Macintalk 2 instead to run on Mini vMac.
thecloud
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by thecloud »

If you are just looking to scratch a 10-year itch and hear old synthesized Mac voices speaking text, someone has set up a nifty demo at https://archive.org/download/FitterHapp ... appier.img . Download that image and use it to start up Mini vMac, then follow the instructions in the Read Me file.

The apps5.dsk you mention contains Macintalk 3, which won't run on Mini vMac at all. Macintalk 2 needs System 7 (that's what the above demo image has installed.) The original Macintalk would run on System 6.

Another thing that might be confusing about that apps5.dsk: there is no installer. You are expected to manually mount the disk in Mini vMac, and then manually copy any files you want from that disk over to your boot disk. Notice it contains a folder named Macintalk 3, and inside it there is a folder named "Place these to Extensions". What that is telling you is that you need to take the contents of that folder and copy them to the Extensions folder inside the System Folder on your startup disk (in Mini vMac). There was no Extensions folder inside the System Folder on System 6 -- that was a feature introduced in System 7. So right away, that's a clue that you would need System 7 and not System 6. However, keep in mind that even if you did that with Macintalk 3 on System 7, that version still won't run on Mini vMac because of the 68030 processor requirement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlainTalk
https://www.whitefiles.org/dta/pgs/f10.htm

You can probably set up a System7 boot disk as that original video showed, then copy the Macintalk 2 pieces from the FitterHappier image (Macintalk 2, Speech Manager, and the Voices folder... they'll be inside the Extensions folder inside the System Folder).
Brenton
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by Brenton »

Thanks folks!

Greatly appreciated. I had previously tried copying Macintalk 3 to the extensions folder as it suggests but couldn't find a way to launch it. I had probably done a number of things wrong beforehand anyway.

Thank you very much for the image. Looking forward to testing it out.

A few hours after starting this thread I did some research into the speech engine that Hawking used and discovered that he had a unit called DECtalk which utilised a speech synthesis algorithm created by Dennis Klatt.

I found a software DECtalk which was okay but it doesn't compare to the hardware unit of course. I'm an electronic music producer and I've been after an authentic Stephen Hawking voice for years. I guess I'm just going to have to settle for either Macintalk or Dectalk. :lol:
thecloud
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by thecloud »

Brenton wrote: Sun Jun 05, 2022 7:14 pm I had previously tried copying Macintalk 3 to the extensions folder as it suggests but couldn't find a way to launch it.
Macintalk is a system library. It isn't something you launch directly; instead, once it's installed, you need some application which supports Macintalk functionality. SimpleText is an example of an application that will use Macintalk if it's installed. There is a copy of that app on the demo image, and it can read whatever text you provide as input.
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adespoton
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by adespoton »

Also worth noting that while Mini vMac doesn't support Macintalk 3, SheepShaver running Mac OS 9 does.

Plus "Repeat After Me" doesn't work with Macintalk Pro voices, but if you're in music, you're definitely going to want to play around with Repeat After Me.
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by thecloud »

adespoton wrote: Mon Jun 06, 2022 2:53 pm Plus "Repeat After Me" doesn't work with Macintalk Pro voices, but if you're in music, you're definitely going to want to play around with Repeat After Me.
Repeat After Me is amazing! Also worth noting that it's a Mac OS X app, 32-bit i386 only, and as such, won't run past Mojave (10.14). It is, or was, available as an optional part of the Xcode developer tools. Setting that up in a VM is a whole different topic.
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adespoton
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Re: Macintalk installation?

Post by adespoton »

I'm pretty sure there were PPC OS X and OS 8.6/9 builds of Repeat After Me as well; I think it was downloadable as a sample project from ADC (no compiled version distributed). I'll have to see if I've got that around somewhere. The copy I use these days is indeed that 32-bit Intel one.

That said, you can also generate your text in Repeat After Me and then put that text in a TeachText document on a Mac Plus and have it replicate the "speech" in its original environment.
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