Missing old Mac OS voices?

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I was just thinking that I hadn't heard the voice of Zarvox in recent OS updates for a while. Maybe I'm the only boomer here who even knows who he was?

But I found this:

Get your favorite macOS text-to-speech voices back - BrettTerpstra.com

This is one of those things that is likely common knowledge, but I stumbled across it accidentally today while doing some studying on web accessibility.

brettterpstra.com

As somebody commented there is no need to even use VoiceOver Utility.app, they're all there in Accessibility - Spoken Content...

 

[mikzn]

Ha Ha

I always liked Fred - but would be cool to hear Zarvox again 👍 - lol

Trinoids always reminded me of the Karen Carpenter Cover Song - "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft" - intro by the aliens - LOL

I tried this on Mojave and it worked fine - but on Big Sure I get the message "waiting to download" for each voice I added - I will give it a few hours to see if they download 😃

 

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I was just thinking that I hadn't heard the voice of Zarvox in recent OS updates for a while. Maybe I'm the only boomer here who even knows who he was?

mikzn from Vancouver reacts to my post with a laughing emoji, but I find it more amusing that there is no Canadian English voice, only various French Canadian voices. 🤣

There's a plethora of English speaking voices; USA, UK, Indian, Scottish, Irish and South African, but no Canadian English voice. Eh?

Don't you speak English in Canada? Eh?

😉

 

[Unsupported]

Ha Ha

I always liked Fred - but would be cool to hear Zarvox again 👍 - lol

[...]

I tried this on Mojave and it worked fine - but on Big Sure I get the message "waiting to download" for each voice I added - I will give it a few hours to see if they download 😃

I admit I haven't heard or used those voices in a l o n g time, maybe since OS 9 or thereabouts.

I've downloaded a few voices one at a time in macOS Big Sur and they don't take long.

I've been getting a lot of scam callers on my landline phone here in Spain from people speaking Spanish with South American accents. So I've recorded messages with Text to Speech with Columbian and Mexican voices using Voice Memos.app.

When they call now I ask them to hold on while I play them a message telling them that their call has been transferred to the Cyber Crimes Division of the National Police, and that their call is being traced and recorded for evidence.

"Please stay on the line, one of our agents will attend to you shortly." 👺

 

[romanof]

When they call now I ask them to hold on while I play them a message telling them that their call has been transferred to the Cyber Crimes Division of the National Police, and that their call is being traced and recorded for evidence.

"Please stay on the line, one of our agents will attend to you shortly."

I recorded a session of the control tones that you used to hear on land lines that sounded like very fast touch tone presses. I just say "Hold on until I find out where you are." then play the tones. It would not fool a techie, but almost always causes the grunt labor in a spam farm to immediately hang up.