[FoRK] a bit of fun

[paul]

On another list...

There was a post with several "error haikus".  And a few replies ... uh, 
maybe I just remember all this stuff... I hit delete.   Anyway,

>> Please keep it up! I'm deathly bored over here! All anyone talks 
>> about is numbers! Do you like error message haikus?  As in "hey,
>> wouldn't it be terrific if your pooter spoke back in haiku?"
>> 

Being my usual smart-aleck self, I replied:

> It can.  WinXP, can.  Paste this into notepad:
> 
> Set objVoice = CreateObject("SAPI.SpVoice")
> objVoice.Speak "Welcome to the machine"
> 
> 
> Save with a .vbs extension. 

And it just went from there....  I'm figuring this out as I go...

> Good info here:
> http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/funzone/games/sapi.mspx
> 
> But wait!  There are more voices!  Downloading Speech SDK 5.1 which 
> varies from 2.0 MB - 288.8 MB (depends on selected download components) 
> is rough.
> 
> Click the Downloads Center link 
> <http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=5E86EC97-40A7-453F-B0EE-6583171B4530&displaylang=en>
> and scroll down for "Sp5TTIntXP.exe".  Uh, maybe not.  I got a zip file 
> containing "Sp5TTIntXP.Msm".  Whatever that is, get it as an exe here: 
> http://www.imptec.com/download.htm.
> 


http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/funzone/games/sapi.mspx
is a fun read.

I now have Microsoft Mary and Mike in addition to Microsoft Sam.  None 
are as cool as the voice module for my TI99/4a.  Nothing will ever be 
cooler.  The MS voices are better because there is a bit of inflection 
and pauses for commas and periods.

But I haven't plugged the TI into AC since, oh, 1984.  Never found the 
space for a spare TV in a spare room.  Or the time.  Mostly, the time. 
And like, a ti99/4a is gonna do email?  When there was no Internet at 
the time?   Yeah, I know, someone is going to tell me the TI can telnet 
or something if I have the right module.... p'haps a "modem module". 
Tell me.

But this vbs stuff is almost as cool as typing cuss words and having the 
computer say "fuck you" thru the TV's speaker.  TURN IT UP LOUD!  Turn 
it up even louder about 11pm when you start hearing noises from a 
housemate's room and see how the leaching do nothing about the house fat 
cow acts in the morning.  :)  Great fun.

We were easily amused in the old days.  It was all magic.  The old days 
of typing in three pages of tiny font shit all day from a Byte mag and 
then, *yes!* it works!  For something that /anything/ by Atari looked 
great.  Backup?  Yeah right, just the cable for the special cassette 
recorder was like $40.  In 1983.  Gullible?  Say it like Bugs Bunny.  :) 
  Yeah, we were maroons.

Hell, VCRs and cable boxes so you could record HBO w/o having a 
subscription was bleeding edge.  And then Stereo VCRs!  :)

Actually, this is cooler because I can save the script file / batch 
file, whatever, and just double-click and walla, my PC says "fuck you".

Oh.... and you can direct the voice into a .wav file...   and then use 
it for system events.


Lots of fun.


paul

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