Speak (Unix): Difference between revisions

speak
Original author(s)	Douglas McIlroy
Developer(s)	AT&T Bell Laboratories
Initial release	February 1973; 51 years ago
Operating system	Unix and Unix-like
Type	Command

Browse history interactively

← Previous edit

Content deleted Content added

VisualWikitext

Inline

Latest revision as of 19:46, 31 December 2023

speak was a Unix utility that used a predefined set of rules to turn a file of English text into phoneme data compatible with a Federal Screw Works (later Votrax) model VS4 "Votrax" Speech Synthesizer.^[1]^[2] It was first included in Unix v3^[3] and possibly later ones, with the OS-end support files and help files persisting until v6. As of late 2011, the original source code^[4]^[5] for speak, and portions of speak.m (which is generated from speak.v)^[6] were discovered. At least three^[7]^[8]^[9] versions of the man page are known to still exist.

The main program (speak) was around 4500 bytes,^[1] the rule tables (/etc/speak.m) were around 11,000 bytes,^[1] and the table viewer (speakm)^[10] was around 1900 bytes.^[1]

History

The speak utility was developed by Douglas McIlroy in the early 1970s at AT&T Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was included with the 1st Edition of Unix in 1973. In 1974, McIlroy published a paper describing the workings of this algorithm.^[1]

According to the McIlroy paper,^[1] "K. Thompson and D. M. Ritchie integrated the device smoothly into the operating system", which is evident from /usr/sys/dev/vs.c "Screw Works Interface via DC-11".

McIlroy Algorithm

The McIlroy Algorithm is a large set of rules, sub-rules, and sub-sub-rules, applied to a word to isolate long vowels, silent 'e's, and slowly convert each letter into its "Screw Works" equivalent phoneme code.^[11] The intention of the algorithm is to convert any English text into Votrax Phoneme codes, which could be played back/recited by a Federal Screw Works "Votrax" speech synthesizer.

A later (1976), simpler text-to-speech algorithm developed jointly by Votrax and the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory, known as the "NRL Algorithm", serves a similar purpose.^{[citation needed]}

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f M. Douglas McIlroy (March 1974). "Synthetic English speech by rule". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 14 (S1): S55 – S56. Bibcode:1974ASAJ...55R..55M. doi:10.1121/1.1919804.
^ McIlroy, M. D. (1974). Synthetic speech by rule (Report). Bell Telephone Laboratories technical report.
^ "UNIX® on the Game Boy Advance". www.kernelthread.com.
^ "[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose". Archived from the original on June 20, 2014.
^ "[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose". minnie.tuhs.org. Archived from the original on June 20, 2014.
^ "[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose". minnie.tuhs.org. Archived from the original on June 20, 2014.
^ "The Unix Tree". minnie.tuhs.org. November 24, 1981. Retrieved December 31, 2023.
^ The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org
^ The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org
^ The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org
^ The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org

[mcilroy_paper-1] ^ ^a ^b ^c ^d ^e ^f M. Douglas McIlroy (March 1974). "Synthetic English speech by rule". The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America. 14 (S1): S55 – S56. Bibcode:1974ASAJ...55R..55M. doi:10.1121/1.1919804.

[2] McIlroy, M. D. (1974). Synthetic speech by rule (Report). Bell Telephone Laboratories technical report.

[3] "UNIX® on the Game Boy Advance". www.kernelthread.com.

[4] "[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose". Archived from the original on June 20, 2014.

[5] "[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose". minnie.tuhs.org. Archived from the original on June 20, 2014.

[6] "[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose". minnie.tuhs.org. Archived from the original on June 20, 2014.

[7] "The Unix Tree". minnie.tuhs.org. November 24, 1981. Retrieved December 31, 2023.

[8] The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org

[9] The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org

[10] The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org

[11] The Unix Tree minnie.tuhs.org

[1]

[2]

[3]

[4]

[5]

[6]

[7]

[8]

[9]

[10]

[11]

@@ Line 1: / Line 1: @@
+{{Short description|Unix utility}}
-{{orphan|date=August 2010}}
+{{Use mdy dates|date=June 2022}}
+{{lowercase title|title=speak}}
+{{Infobox software
+| name                   = speak
+| logo                   =
+| screenshot             =
+| screenshot size        =
+| caption                =
+| author                 = [[Douglas McIlroy]]
+| developer              = [[AT&T Bell Laboratories]]
+| released               = {{Start date and age|1973|2}}
+| latest release version =
+| latest release date    =
+| operating system       = [[Unix]] and [[Unix-like]]
+| genre                  = [[Command (computing)|Command]]
+| license                =
+| website                =
+}}
+'''{{mono|speak}}''' was a [[Unix]] utility that used a predefined set of rules to turn a file of English text into phoneme data compatible with a [[Federal Screw Works]] (later [[Votrax]]) model VS4 "Votrax" Speech Synthesizer.<ref name="mcilroy_paper">{{cite journal|author=M. Douglas McIlroy|title=Synthetic English speech by rule|volume=14|journal=The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America|date=March 1974|issue=S1|pages=S55–S56|doi=10.1121/1.1919804|bibcode=1974ASAJ...55R..55M|doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite report|url=http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/pubs.html|first=M. D.|last=McIlroy|title=Synthetic speech by rule|publisher=Bell Telephone Laboratories technical report|year=1974}}</ref> It was first included in [[Unix]] v3<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/gbaunix/|title=UNIX® on the Game Boy Advance|website=www.kernelthread.com}}</ref> and possibly later ones, with the OS-end support files and help files persisting until v6. As of late 2011, the original source code<ref>{{cite web|url=http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002538.html |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620170452/https://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002538.html |archive-date=2014-06-20 |title=[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002550.html |title=[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose |website=minnie.tuhs.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620170426/http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002550.html |archive-date=2014-06-20}}</ref> for {{mono|speak}}, and portions of speak.m (which is generated from speak.v)<ref>{{cite web |url=http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002546.html |title=[TUHS] speak.c, or sometimes the bits are under your nose |website=minnie.tuhs.org |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140620170429/http://minnie.tuhs.org/pipermail/tuhs/2011-December/002546.html |archive-date=2014-06-20}}</ref> were discovered. At least three<ref>{{cite web | title=The Unix Tree | website=minnie.tuhs.org | date=24 November 1981 | url=https://minnie.tuhs.org/cgi-bin/utree.pl | access-date=31 December 2023}}</ref><ref>[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V4/usr/man/man1/speak.1 The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org</ref><ref>[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V6/usr/man/man6/speak.6 The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org</ref> versions of the [[man page]] are known to still exist.
+The main program (speak) was around 4500 bytes,<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/> the rule tables (/etc/speak.m) were around 11,000 bytes,<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/> and the table viewer (speakm)<ref>[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V3/usr/man/manx/speakm.5.html The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org</ref> was around 1900 bytes.<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/>
-{{Cleanup|date=July 2009}}
-{{lowercase|title=speak}}
+==History==
-'''<tt>speak</tt>''' was a [[Unix]] utility that used a predefined set of rules to turn a file of English text into phoneme data compatible with a [[Federal Screw Works]] (later [[Votrax]]) model VS4 "Votrax" Speech Synthesizer.<ref name="mcilroy_paper">{{cite journal|author=M. Douglas McIlroy|title=[http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/ Synthetic English speech by rule]|volume=14|journal=Computing Science Technical Report, Bell Laboratories|month=March|year=1974|pages=}}</ref> It was first included in [[Unix]] v3<ref>http://www.kernelthread.com/publications/gbaunix/</ref> and possibly later ones, with the OS-end support files and help files persisting until v6. Neither the original binaries nor the source code for '''<tt>speak</tt>''' have been found yet, though at least three<ref>http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V3/usr/man/man1/speak.1</ref><ref>http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V4/usr/man/man1/speak.1</ref><ref>http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V6/usr/man/man6/speak.6</ref> versions of the [[man page]] are known to still exist.
+The speak utility was developed by [[Douglas McIlroy]] in the early 1970s at [[AT&T]] [[Bell Labs]] in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was included with the 1st Edition of Unix in 1973. In 1974, McIlroy published a paper describing the workings of this algorithm.<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/>
+According to the McIlroy paper,<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/> "[[Ken Thompson|K. Thompson]] and [[Dennis Ritchie|D. M. Ritchie]] integrated the device smoothly into the operating system", which is evident from /usr/sys/dev/vs.c "Screw Works Interface via [[DEC DC-11|DC-11]]".
-The main program (speak) was around 4500 bytes<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/>, the rule tables (/etc/speak.m) were around 11000 bytes<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/>, and the table viewer (speakm)<ref>http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V3/usr/man/manx/speakm.5.html</ref> was around 1900 bytes<ref name="mcilroy_paper"/>.
-== History ==
+==McIlroy Algorithm==
+The McIlroy Algorithm is a large set of rules, sub-rules, and sub-sub-rules, applied to a word to isolate long vowels, silent 'e's, and slowly convert each letter into its "Screw Works" equivalent phoneme code.<ref>[http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V3/usr/man/man7/vsp.7.html The Unix Tree] minnie.tuhs.org</ref> The intention of the algorithm is to convert any English text into Votrax Phoneme codes, which could be played back/recited by a Federal Screw Works "Votrax" speech synthesizer.
+A later (1976), simpler text-to-speech algorithm developed jointly by [[Votrax]] and the [[U.S. Naval Research Laboratory]], known as the "NRL Algorithm", serves a similar purpose.{{Citation needed|date=December 2010}}
-The speak utility was developed by [[Douglas McIlroy]] in the early 1970s at [[AT&T]] [[Bell Labs]] in Murray Hill, New Jersey. It was included with the 1st Edition of Unix in 1973. In 1974, [[Douglas McIlroy]] published a paper describing the workings of this algorithm.<ref name="mcilroy paper"/>
+==References==
-According to the McIlroy paper<ref name="mcilroy paper"/>, "[[Ken Thompson|K. Thompson]] and [[Dennis Ritchie|D. M. Ritchie]] integrated the device smoothly into the operating system", which is evident from /usr/sys/dev/vs.c "Screw Works Interface via [[DEC DC-11|DC-11]]".
+{{Reflist}}
-== McIlroy Algorithm ==
-The McIlroy Algorithm is a large set of rules, sub-rules, and sub-sub-rules, applied to a word to isolate long vowels, silent 'e's, and slowly convert each letter into its "Screw Works" equivalent phoneme code.<ref>http://minnie.tuhs.org/UnixTree/V3/usr/man/man7/vsp.7.html</ref>
-The intention of the algorithm is to convert any English text into Votrax Phoneme codes, which could be played back/recited by a Federal Screw Works "Votrax" speech synthesizer.
-A later (1976), simpler text-to-speech algorithm developed jointly by [[Votrax]] and the [[U.S. Naval Research Laboratory]], known as the "NRL Algorithm", serves a similar purpose.{{Citation needed|date=December 2010}}
-<references/>
 [[Category:Unix software]]