SmoothTalker(tm) Warning

[Info-Mac]

Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 UW 5/3/83; site uw-beaver
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxj!mhuxn!houxm!vax135!cornell!uw-beaver!info-mac
From: info-mac@uw-beaver (info-mac)
Newsgroups: fa.info-mac
Subject: SmoothTalker(tm) Warning
Message-ID:
Date: Tue, 4-Dec-84 03:53:19 EST
Article-I.D.: uw-beave.2427
Posted: Tue Dec 4 03:53:19 1984
Date-Received: Tue, 4-Dec-84 23:51:26 EST
Sender: daemon@uw-beave
Organization: U of Washington Computer Science
Lines: 76

From: wasser_1%[email protected] (John A. Wasser)

Beware of Smooth-Talking Software Vendors!
or
The First Byte may not be the last!

I purchased a copy of SmoothTalker (by First Byte) recently
(at least I thought that was what I paid for... see below) and
would like to warn people what they are getting into. I made
the purchase based on the SmoothTalker Demo Disk that I saw
and heard at a computer store. What I got is not what I
expected from the demo (or from previous experience purchasing
software).

When you open the box (after having paid your $150) you find
out that they didn't include the Female voice (mentioned in
the demo) on the disk. You have to send for the free backup
disk (the built-in manual says $15 backup disk) to get the
Female voice.

When you start SmoothTalker you are assaulted with six screens
worth of legalese in the form of a "License and Use Agreement".
The full text of the agreement is too long to post (Please send
mail if you want a copy) but here are some of the more odious
points in it:

1) What you purchased is a SINGLE-USER, SINGLE-CPU,
NON-TRANSFERRABLE license.

2) First Byte (the publisher of SmoothTalker) owns the
software and any copies you make AND ANY SOFTWARE
DEVELOPED USING THEIR SOFTWARE. You cannot make
copies without PRIOR WRITTEN PERMISSION.

3) The program is sold "AS IS" and can be as full of
bugs as they like. They only thing that they
Warranty in any way is the disk on which the
software is shipped.

4) If you sue them, you can only recover the purchase price.
If they sue you, they get legal fees and more.

It gets worse! The only way to use SmoothTalker (currently) is
to have it speak a text file. You cannot currently call
SmoothTalker (V1.0 as shipped) from ANY programming language.
(Remember that if you do, the program legally becomes theirs and
you can't use it on any other Macintosh.) The program works
fairly well on plain English text... except for the falling
inflection that falls at a constant rate (falls more on long
sentences than short sentences) and makes it sound like the
speaker.. is... running.... d o w n. The text file can be
phonetic but cannot (it seems) be mixed English and phonetic.
There is no way to have a text file converted to phonemes, and
English text is read in chunks of about 3 to 6 lines with
long pauses in between.

One bright spot: I have it on good authority that if the master
disk (which is copy-protected, by the way, with bad sectors) is
write-protected (uncover the hole), you can accept the license
agreement without changing the disk. This way you can check out
the software without loosing your chance to return it to the
dealer for a refund (which is what I intend to do).

"Let the buyer BEWARE... but let him also be INFORMED!"

John A. Wasser
New England Computer Society
SIGMac Founder

Work address:
ARPAnet: WASSER%[email protected]
Usenet: {allegra,Shasta,decvax}!decwrl!dec-rhea!dec-viking!wasser
USPS: Digital Equipment Corp.
Mail stop: LJO2/E4
30 Porter Rd
Littleton, MA 01460