Now you can use PayPal to donate to help with cost of distribution of  CHIPSpeaking and CHIPSpeech, just click the button above! Donations are not required, but they are appreciated!

Chip Mood died peacefully in his home in July 2001.

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"CHIP"

George McF. Mood, III

He never gave up, his body gave out.

May he rest in peace.

What It Means

CHIPSpeaking stands for: Conversational Help for Individuals with Problems Speaking

Support Requests

When contacting me for support requests, YOU ABSOLUTELY MUST INCLUDE THE version of Windows you are running so I can be sure you have the right drivers. Without this information I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO HELP YOU!

Known problems:

If you get the Error 76 from CHIPSpeech, the install directory is incorrect. You have to use

C:\Program Files\CHIPSpeaking as the install directory in all current CHIPSpeaking  software products.

 

Error 91 happens when you fail to load a character when trying to generate speech with CHIPSpeaking.

You MUST use SAPI 4.0 drivers to make CHIPSpeaking work in the Windows XP  and Windows Vista environments!

To contact us:

Snail Mail:

CHIPSpeaking Software

112 Dean Court

Lexington, SC 29073-7567

There are new versions of both CHIPSpeaking (2.7.00) and CHIPSpeech (2.5.10) These were posted on 1/19/2001.   I've also re-done the web page with a new style to make it easier to read and hopefully more interesting   I am pleased to announce a brand new addition to the CHIPSpeaking family of products, "CHIPSpeech?"   Unlike the flagship product, CHIPSpeaking? , CHIPSpeech?  actually is written to assist PALS to record their voice as it is now, and preserve the phrases and sentences that are needed in everyday life, and recall them in their own voice, and save that speech indefinitely. The recordings are made and saved to disk in small files, which can be saved on diskette or backup media for use on other computers.   CHIPSpeech currently supports 99 common phrases, and one emergency button for an alert. The file is posted below, near CHIPSpeaking.zip. It's filename is CHIPSpeech.zip. Each is roughly 3.5 megabytes in size. (If you are in a hurry to download it, these links will start the download for you.)   NOTICE: CHIPSpeaking does NOT support WinNT 3.51, 4.0 or Windows 2000! If you want to attempt to make it work on these platforms, please advise me if they work. I have no way to support them because I only have one computer to test with. The will be no support (e-mail or otherwise) for these platforms.

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People with A.L.S.

This Microsoft Agent Ring site  is owned by John T. McF. Mood

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Great News

End User George H. discovered how to make CHIPSpeaking

work under Windows Vista!

All files in the program directory C:\Program Files\CHIPSpeaking

Must be marked as read/write

AND

The end user MUST have read and write priveledges.

Many thanks go to George!

NEW!

Welcome to CHIPSpeaking Software's Web Site!

Home of CHIPSpeaking, CHIPSpeech, and coming in the future Freeboard!

 

Speech Utilities for the vocally disabled.

 

CHIPSpeaking: FREE SPEECH FOR THE VOCALLY DISABLED !

We’re under re-construction, but our downloads ARE available. (Most graphics won’t show up.... We’re working on it!

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DIRECTORY Of RELATED LINKS

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The Software

CHIPSpeaking.zip . . . . . . . . . CHIPSpeaking

(The CHIPSpeaking install package has the "Plany" character packaged with it. Other characters can be downloaded on  the Agent WebRing!)

CHIPSpeech.zip  . . . . . . . . . . CHIPSpeech

Character Support

I'm sorry, but due to space constraints on the server this page is now hosted on, I cannot  support downloads of more then the essentials for these two programs. Check the Microsoft site listed above for more characters. Also, most of the Agent 2.0 \Webring sites have more characters. You will find them on the referenced pages.

http://www.microsoft.com/ . . . . . . . . .Search this site for Agent and Enable for some really great stuff.

http://www.rayflex.com/. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Some Agent characters are available here.

http://www.cantoche.com/agent/index.htm . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Some Agent characters are available here.

http://www.jimmullen.com  . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A fine page by an EnAbled fellow named Jim Mullen.

http://www.microsoft.com/enable/productions/order.htm . . . Get a free video on Assistive technology.

http://www.miami-als.org  . . . . . . .  The University of Miami A.L.S. research group, some of the best!

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genie.zip and msagent.zip are copyright © Microsoft Corporation. tv_enuaa.zip is licensed to Microsoft by Lernout & Haspie™ and is copyright © Lernout & Haspie™. CHIPSpeaking™ is copyright © 1999, 2000, & 2001 John T. McF. Mood, Sr., S.F.O. All Rights Reserved.

CHIPSpeech™ is copyright © 2001 John T. McF. Mood, Sr., S.F.O. All Rights Reserved. Trademarks mentioned are the property of their respective holders.

CHIPSpeaking™ John T. McF. Mood

Portions copyright Microsoft Corporation.

Suggestions please!

Any idea you have could become a part of the next release of CHIPSpeaking Software. Most of the features now in the software are as a result of suggestions by PALS or by caregivers, physicians, and speech therapists.

Thanks for taking to the time to write!

CHIP WAS A GENTLEMAN, WE WILL MISS HIM.

The Legal Stuff:

CHIPSpeaking™ Software is properly licensed to redistribute Microsoft Agent Components.  CHIPSpeaking™ Software makes no warranty concerning Microsoft's components. Microsoft makes no warranty about CHIPSpeaking components.

My brother George McF. Mood, III, P.A. was a pretty darned good guy. He enjoys gardening and computers. He also had A.L.S. His speech was affected by the disease, along with part of his motor skills. He could, with great effort, use his arms, but fine motor skills were exceptionally difficult for him. He was known as Chip since he was a chip off the old block, according to our parents. Since this was originally written, Chip could no longer use his hands or sit up without support. He enjoyed watching golf on TV. When Chip was healthy, he was one heck of a good golfer. He succumbed to the disease in 2001.

I named this software after Chip, who has been losing the capacity to speak due to A.L.S. (Amyeotrophic Lateral Sclerosis or Motor Neuron Disease) commonly known as Lou Gehrig's Disease, after the great baseball player. 

When my brother George McFarlane Mood, III was diagnosed with A.L.S., he was beginning to speak poorly, but could be understood. In the space of the last two years, it has become more and more difficult for him to be understood.

Chip asked me while ago to seek out speech synthesis software. I found that 'name brand' programs ran $800.00 and up for the software. Some of these programs require additional proprietary software to work. The cheapest I found was a total of almost $ 2,000.00. I see that as an affront to the humanity of the victims of this and

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Chip used the CB handle
 

"Sand Crab"

years ago!

 

Lou Gehrig held the consecutive games played record for over 50 years. The only thing that stopped him was this insidious neuromuscular disease. 

PROGRAMMING IT ALL . . .

other diseases that steal vocal abilities.

To be robbed twice would be heartbreaking. I am determined to keep this software free for many reasons, but mostly because I have seen firsthand the anguish felt by A.L.S. victims.

So, I decided to write some software using the free text to speech software that Microsoft supplies for free. We're on the right track with free. Next I had to get the Agent™ software from Microsoft. Thanks Bill and Co.!

So then came the fun part. Writing the software. It took about three weeks of fiddling with Visual Basic™ until I re-learned BASIC within the Windows environment. Once I get the hang of it, it took quite a number of hours of programming and testing time to come up with a test version.

A.L.S. is a progressive neuromuscular disease which slowly robs the patient of his or her ability to move voluntary muscles. Eventually, it affects involuntary muscles and their nerves, which makes it impossible for the patient to breathe and live.

Cal Ripken, Jr. and the Baltimore Orioles team were wonderful the day Mr. Ripken passed Lou Gehrig's record. They sold box seats to that game with the proceeds going to the Lou Gehrig ALS research center. The ticket sales totaled 2.3 million. Cal Ripken and his teammates rounded the figure up to a full 3 million OUT OF THEIR OWN POCKETS AND BANK BOOKS! Go Orioles!

Not long ago, another famous baseball player died from the disease, Catfish Hunter - a great pitcher and a hero since my youth. The disease is a slowly advancing neuromuscular disease. This means that the simple tasks that many of us take for granted are gone for many ALS patients - as well as victim of other similar diseases. There is no known cure and eventually, the stricken person's lungs stop breathing because the nerves and muscles required atrophy and waste away. It is usually fatal within 2 ½ to 4 years of the patient's diagnosis

CHIPSpeaking and CHIPSpeech are fairly simple, and quite easily used. The buttons are easy and fairly large to accommodate persons with motor skill difficulties. CHIPSpeaking has an area to type what you want the computer to say. It also can let you paste text into the speech entry area. This allows you to read your email without looking at it, which will allow persons with difficulty seeing small text on the screen to hear their messages.

The software requires a multimedia equipped IBM or compatible computer. In short, it is a pure 32 bit program, and even though you

GETTING THE SOFTWARE

may have a Windows 3.1 operating system, you don't have enough hardware to run this. Windows 95 and up can run it without any problems. It has been tested under Windows 95, Windows 98 (revision 1 and 2), and Windows M.E. . Anyone who tries it on any platform, please make notes of error messages and any other programs running concurrently if problems occur and let me know please).

I could use the help, and so could our vocally disabled friends and relatives. Even someone with laryngitis can use this program for free. ANYONE can use it for free!

Some of my co-workers enjoy it because they can read their mail with it and work with their hands on other projects while they listen to the mail.

To get a copy, you can either download the files from this site or get a CD from me by mail. The files total about 3.5 megabytes, and should take only a few minutes with a 56K modem. It may stretch your patience to the limits to try to download this with any modem slower than 33.6. There is one file, and in contains the installation files. You must install the software on your computer before CHIPSpeaking will work. You also need to look over the README.ZIP and LICENSE.ZIP files included in the install directory,

C:\Program Files\CHIPSpeaking. You can also download them directly.

CHIPSpeaking™ is a software product that is FREE for anyone, so long as no commercial purpose is served and no fee is charged for it's use. The program starts out with a gray text entry screen. This will change white once you have opened the File/Open dialog. Then you pick a character. Once you have done this, you can see the white text entry screen.

Just type, and when you hit the ENTER or RETURN key, it will process your words into speech and the character's lips will move and animate it's expression. Speech comes out of the sound card and speakers, hence the requirement of a multimedia equipped computer.

Please check the Help menu and look over the information there. If you need help with the program, feel free to send me an e-mail with the details of the problem. I will get back to you as soon as possible. If it requires phone support, I may have to call you collect, but I will call. Just state a good time during the evening and I will call the number you leave collect. Have your notes handy so we can get to the heart of your problem fast.

CHIPSpeaking™ is a software product that is FREE for anyone, so long as no commercial purpose is served and no fee is charged for it's use. Commercial users can contact me by e-mail. at chipspeaking@aol.com for commercial licensing terms.

 

 

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This software was written for A.L.S. patients as well as victims of other neuromuscular diseases, as well as for the use of folks who may have had a tracheotomy. Also those who have severe laryngitis and are told to keep silent so their voice will heal are welcome to have this free. Everyone can have and use this software, provided that no commercial purpose is served and no money is charged to anyone for it's use. People who want to have fun making their computer say things are free to use it too. The only caution is that this software is not to be used for any professional activity or for any unlawful purpose. I will not be liable for misuse of this software. Legal action will be taken against those who violate these terms and the terms of the license agreement.

(See license.txt)

The software works by using text input and converting it to speech by translating the text into the the smallest part of speech called a phoneme. The phonemes are then put together and sent to your sound card as speech. There is very little lag time, so it is close to real time. Best of all it works and it's free. I checked out some of the retail products that can function like this and they do not seem to speak as clearly as you need them to be to allow average folks to hear it.

For more information, you can click on the links at the bottom of the first page to find the Agent Webring.

A.L.S. patients, as well as those who have lost the ability to speak for whatever reason will benefit from your support of this software. Your support can take several forms.

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Donations are encouraged

(See Above PayPaL Button!)

First, you could send me some supplies (CD's mostly are needed to publish this program) to help me defray the cost of sending CD's and diskettes to people who need the program.  I have several contacts in the medical community who are trying to help spread the word of this program. I want to keep this program completely free and with your help I can. Donations of any kind are completely voluntary. The program is and always will be free.

 

My Address is: 

CHIPSpeaking Software

C/O John T. McF. Mood
112 Dean Court

Lexington, SC 29073-7567

 

Also, you can spread the word of this program to those who might need it. Even someone who has a temporary condition like laryngitis can benefit from this, since it will speak for them. it would be pointless to produce this program if nobody was able to take advantage of it. You may have a friend who can be helped by it. Tell them.