Oh, and something about TextEase version 6, as well.
Elesar Ltd‘s Rob Sprowson will be visiting the Wakefield RISC OS Computer Club (WROCC) on Wednesday, 7th December, to deliver a talk ostensibly on the subject of speech.
Well, speech synthesis to be precise.
Kicking off with a look at the introduction of speech synthesis on the BBC Micro, and the technicalities of how it work, Rob will then provide a practical demonstration of this using micro-controllers developed on RISC OS.
It’s been a long time since those days on the BBC, though, and these days it’s possible to perform speech synthesis entirely in software, with a notable example being Speak (now eSpeak), originally developed by Jonathan Duddington in the late 1990s. Popularly used at the time with Pluto, his news and email client, Speak provided all the necessary calls to be used by any application – such as TextEase, which is now maintained and sold by Elesar.
And speaking of TextEase, it seems a version 6 of the suite is looming, and Rob will provide a sneak peak of what can be expected when it’s released.
Rob will be attending the Club’s normal venue in person, but the meeting will be a hybrid one, with one audience consisting of local WROCC members in the same place, and another made up of people watching online because Wakefield is impractically far away.
If you can make it in person, the place you need to be is:
West Yorkshire Sports & Social Club,
Sandal Hall Close,
Off Walton Lane,
Wakefield,
WF2 6ER.
The meeting officially starts at 7:45pm, and there are detailed instructions on how to find it on the Club’s website.
Important update – this paragraph previously said the meeting used the same Zoom codes as previous meetings, but this is not the case: If you can’t make it in person, you grab yourself a computer or other device capable of running the Zoom software – which means most modern platforms – and find yourself a comfortable place to sit. You’ll need the access details for the meeting, and unfortunately it is not possible to use the same details as before, so if you aren’t a member of the club and haven’t already received the details for this month, get in touch in plenty of time (remember, as noted above it starts at 7:45pm), and they’ll be sent your way.
WROCC is funded by memberships, which currently cost just £10.00 per year, discounted to £5.00 for the first year – and is very good value. As well as supporting one of the largest RISC OS user groups in the UK, your tenner gets you free access to the (physical) meetings if you’re able to get to them (non-members are expected to pay a small entry fee), access to their online discussion list, and you’ll become a recipient of the self-titled monthly WROCC newsletter, delivered to your email inbox as a PDF file.
WROCC also organises the annual Wakefield Show, which will next take place on Saturday, 22nd April, 2023, at:
The Cedar Court Hotel,Mayo Avenue,
Rooley Lane,
Bradford,
BD5 8HW.
Note: As with the 2022 show, that’s the Cedar Court Hotel in Bradford, not Wakefield – set your calendars and satnavs accordingly!
