Strip-Mac! includes support for Apple's Speech Manager software. This means that those of you who have the Speech Manager software installed have the option of having the cards read to you by a synthesised voice.
What is the Speech Manager?
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The Speech Manager is a system extension that should be placed in your System Folder. By itself it does nothing, but programmers can use it to write programs that produce speech. The current version at the time of writing is 1.3.
How do I get it and how do I install it?
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The easiest way to get it is to copy it from a friend who has it. You do not have to pay for it, Apple gives it away free. Alternately you should be able to find it on Apple's FTP or Web server on the Internet.
Optionally, for much better quality speech, you can also obtain the extension MacInTalk Pro. (Version 1.3 is current at the time of writing.) This contains a better quality speech synthesiser than the one built into the Speech Manager extension. The PlainTalk synthesiser requires a machine with a 68020 or better processor and LOTS of memory.
Once you've obtained these files, pop some or all of them onto the closed icon of your System Folder and they will be installed automatically. (They work under both System 6 and System 7.) Now restart and all will work as it should.
The MINIMUM you must install to hear speech
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Speech Manager: This contains a poor quality synthesiser and 1 voice
What you should also install
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Albert, Junior, Kathy, etc.: More poor quality voices for the Speech Manager's
built in synthesiser.
What to also install if you have a 68020 and heaps of RAM
MacInTalk Pro: An impressive synthesiser, and one okay voice
TTS Agnes, TTS Bruce, TTS Victoria: High quality voice for the MacInTalk Pro synthesiser
In practice, unless you install the MacInTalk Pro extension and at least one of the high quality voices, you will probably not be satisfied with the quality of the speech that your machine produces.
See the general section of the online help for a note regarding pronunciation dictionaries.
(If you will not be using speech then you can reduce the application's preferred memory requirement from 750K to 400K or less using the Finder's Get Info command. Please remember to reset it the larger figure before giving copies away, though. Ta.)
