@mavica_again eSpeak is the universal standard (I don't like its voices, but at least they're familiar).

@mavica_again Maybe Microsoft Sam?

@IvanDSM SAPI5 is really limited

@mavica_again classic mac MacinTalk

@atax1a is there any way to customise the voices or are you stuck with that selection

@mavica_again theres some tools out there to insert new pronunciations and such, but the voices only have like, a rate parameter. conceivably one could write a new voice but idk where to start on that

@atax1a sounds not any better than dectalk then, which is much more customizable with control codes

@mavica_again it looks like you can also vary the pitch at runtime, and embed control codes — https://developer.apple.com/library/archive/documentation/UserExperience/Conceptual/SpeechSynthesisProgrammingGuide/FineTuning/FineTuning.html

@atax1a sounds not too dissimilar to dectalk (and from what i remember it sounding like, they're probably using dectalk as a starting point)

difference is i don't think there's a way to get macintalk on a modern windows computer without emulating a whole macintosh is there? i already have a command line dectalk so this doesn't help much

@atax1a by which i mean, if i wanted something that sounds like dectalk and needs arcane controls to make it sound different, i already have that

i'm looking for other options newer/better than dectalk and it looks like there's just no such thing without getting into sampled or AI territory

@mavica_again the early-2000s windows software we were thinking of was called AT&T Natural Voices — i'm sure newer versions probably have picked up the AI taint, but yeah i think there isn't much out there that's better for your purposes than dectalk

@mavica_again nope, at least not yet. the voices are more whimsical though.

we ALSO remember some windows
product from AT&T but that was a long time ago and we can't recall anything besides its stuffy british pronunciation