Conference 7.286::digital

    I have an old (Fall 1984) issue of _Personal_Times_ (a short lived
    in-house publication dedicated to getting DEC people to use the
    employee purchase plan to buy PCs) that has a feature article on
    a DEC employee who's wife uses a EPP purchased PC in her consulting
    business. I'd assume that if DEC did that then it must be ok.
    
    			Alfred
    
    PS: You might want to ask in the Employee Purchase Program	conference
    at SHALOT::EMPPURPRO. That conference has a lot of readers who may
    have done what you ask. I think that people in the DEPP program
    read there as well.

    Drop by your personnel office for a quick look at the Personnel
    Policies and Procedures Handbook (or something to that effect).  In
    that book there is a section on this.  The jist of it is that you can
    do what you like so long as you don't compete with DEC, its suppliers,
    CMPs, etc, etc.  But don't take my word for it.  Please take a look at
    the Personnel materials.
    
John

        Your manager should have a copy of the (orange) policies three
        ring binder.

    
    I have a question...does anyone know if it's possible to purchase a
    DECtalk board under the Employee Purchase Program?
    
    Assistance, pointers to appropriate conferences, etc., most welcome.
    
    Thanks,
    
    Cindy

CAM3::EMPPURPRO

or 

VTX EPP

My understanding is that most anything you can get through DECdirect or
"PC by DEC" is orderable at an EPP discount.

				Steve

Cindy:

  Also comparison-price the higher end (DSP-equipped) "Sound Blaster"
  boards. They've licensed our DECtalk technology.

                                   Atlant

    What's the employee purchase price for software-only DECtalk ?
    
    FYI: Software-only DECtalk needs a standard PC sound card and a
    standard Intel or Alpha PC. Runs on NT (does it run on DOS too?).
    Demo copy available on the "Digital Road Map for Windows NT" CD.
    
    regards
    john

RE: last two

   The last I heard the software DECtalk (as sold by Digital) is a 32-bit
   Windows product (NT and supposedly runs on Windows 95 as well), so it
   will not run in DOS.

   The SoundBlaster version of DECtalk (called Text Assist) is on the
   SB's DSP (called ASP on the box) chip.  I'm pretty sure it runs on
   Windows 3.1 but not sure if it will run in DOS.  According to
   Creative Labs' forum on Compuserve, it will NOT run on NT because the
   DSP chip isn't supported on NT.  Not sure about Win/95.

	re: -.1

>>   The SoundBlaster version of DECtalk (called Text Assist) is on the
>>   SB's DSP (called ASP on the box) chip.  I'm pretty sure it runs on
>>   Windows 3.1 but not sure if it will run in DOS.

	Creative Labs only provides a Windows utility for this, but the
	interface to the DSP is via a DOS device driver so presumably
	one could write a DOS utility if provided with the hooks...
	CL probably didn't percieve much of a market for this....


>>   According to
>>   Creative Labs' forum on Compuserve, it will NOT run on NT because the
>>   DSP chip isn't supported on NT.  Not sure about Win/95.

	it isn't supported under NT because CL hasn't (won't?) do the
	work necessary, not because it won't work...and W95 doesn't force
	their hand since it will still "support" 16-bit device drivers...
	CL has historically been *very* market-centric with their
	engineering/support ;-)

	_kelley

TextAssist supposedly works under Windows 95 with a patch that Creative
Labs has put out.  I haven't gotten it to work yet, though.

				Steve

    Whether the Creative Labs solution is appropriate depends on the
    application..
    
    If what you want is a file-reader, it works great; if you're looking
    into assistive devices (for sight- or speech-impaired users) then you'll
    probably be unhappy with the sound-blaster approach. In the middle
    ground (speech-enabled applications) your mileage may vary.
    
    ...tom

    BTW, the Software DECtalk (tm) is discussed in
    BGSDEV::DECTALKINSOFTWARE
    
    ...tom