Puppy Linux Discussion Forum

[Geoffrey]

NEW VERSION 1.3.1

Latest SneekyLinux as kindly donated his voice for the clock, it was recorded at 44100 Hz 16bit so I have converted it to two sizes,
44000Hz 8bit and 8000 Hz 8bit to keep the file size to an acceptable amount.
I can barely tell the difference in the two files, then my HiFi is telephone quality these day's.

Well I have updated to version 1.3.1, this has a tidier looking GUI with hotkey's for all the function's, there is no wav files included with the package,
a voice package can be downloaded separately, I will say that this runs fine on my PC using Lucid 5.2.8, it should run on any puppy as it only relies on clock data and aplay,
if you already are using any of the other versions that being 1.1 or 1.2 then they will need to be completely removed to use this as the file structure is configured differently.

If for any reason the cron job gets removed, you will have to create a new one using "say_clock_time" as the command to be executed.
The next version I may add a button to add a new cron job, I also need to create some more voice's,
it's easy enough to do just need to emulate the wav file's stored in /root/.talking_clock/data/ and name them accordingly.
Anyway let me know if you find a problem, I'm sure it should be fine though.




I'll leave the version 1.1.
==============================================================================================================================================


I've been looking for talking clock and came across a few bash scripts that will do the job, also found some wav files that
I have edited and re-sampled into 8bit files, it doesn't sound to bad though the script could do with some work, as on the hour is say's the 0:0
I would prefer it to say just the hour with either AM or PM, I'll have to do some reading on script writing, anyway it may be of interest to some.
maybe some would like to make a puppy app with it, it is small less than 200k extracted.

Geoffrey

Edit:

I've put together a package for the taking clock using wav files, it is 204k installed, during the install it amends to /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root, so that it runs on the hour,
a small GUI is installed also, this can be found in the menu under system, look for " Say Time Config ", from this small GUI you can set different sound effects and preview them,
also selecting " Setup " will open Pschedule to allow the changing of the clock event timing, this is basic scripting nothing fancy, tried to keep it as simple as possible.

It will speak the time in the AM/PM format, at 12AM it will say " TWELVE MIDNIGHT " and at 12PM say " TWELVE NOON ", depending on the speed of the computer the effects may not work
as they should as they rely on running multiple instances of aplay to get the echo effect, I have not tried this on another PC, works fine on mine but saying that it is a
AMD Athlon(tm) 64 X2 Dual Core Processor 4400+ Core 0: 2310 1: 2310 MHz with 3gigs of ram.

Should it be uninstalled, manually delete the Pschedule entry from within Pschedule as if it is installed again it will amend another copy to /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root.

I think I've covered everything that's needed to be known, let me know how it runs, I'm not planing on doing anymore to it, it seems to work well enough as it is, well it
suit's my purposes, maybe someone would like to make some voice packs.

Edit: I tried this with Slacko 53, had a problem it locked up the PC resulting in a Ctrl+Alt+Back and xwin to get going again,
this happened when the config was run from the menu, I edited the config script so now it works.

[Lobster]

I was hoping to able to talk to time itself
Thanks for providing this, works well - sound not brill but theory is valid.

I am trying to think of an application - you know something like your backup will be ready at 'saytime' . . .

I know there will be a need for this when I build my time travel prototype . . . just got to wait for Cern to provide blue prints . . . and an inter-dimensional fax number . . .

http://tmxxine.tumblr.com/

Puppy Time
Always Now, Always Ready.

[Geoffrey]

[stu90]

Nice one - thanks Geoffrey

[Geoffrey]

Mmmm, this may be better than I thought, just playing around with a script to run the saytime script and found that it can give it different effects.

By running it from another script with multiple instances and sleep statements will give it a echo effect similar to a railway station or stadium,
to try that add the path to top of the script, I have mine in /usr/share/talking_clock/ so the script looks like this.

[harii4]

I was looking for an chime-ing clock like an grandfatherclock-1.0.1-2_all.deb
but this sounds cool too and easyier.

[Moose On The Loose]

Just a comment before really looking into it in detail:

[quote="Geoffrey"]

[Geoffrey]

Hi Moose,

thanks for the code, definitely needs a rewrite, the problem I see with it is the fact that on the hour instead of saying for example, 5 AM it will say 5 OH OH AM
I've been scratching my head trying get around the problem, any help with this would be appreciated.

I think the beauty of making a talking clock this way is that there are no other dependencies needed, also one can create their own sound files.
Over all it don't sound all that bad, it's not as if it will be playing constantly so it doesn't need to be HIFI quality.
I was thinking of using mplayer for the sound but I think aplay is more suited to the task, it seems more responsive and is better suited for the echo effect.

I was also thinking that a simple GUI for presets to set the active period, on the hour etc, this only needs to amend /var/spool/cron/crontabs/root the same as pschedule,
also maybe some echo effects, these seem to give a bit more loudness to the sound, just a thought.

edit: I fixed the problem with OH OH on the hour, and used your replacement code.

[Moose On The Loose]

[Moose On The Loose]

Here is my method. I made the script logic simple by making the file names match the numbers.

The file is flat (no directory structure)

[Geoffrey]

[Geoffrey]

Uploaded a package for the saytime script, please test it and let me know how it works for you, see first post.

Geoffrey

[Moose On The Loose]

[gcmartin]

Could one suggest how to insert this into the system to be an active system activity?

thre's also the taskbatr clock, could this be a feature of that clock or a replacement of that clock?

Is this a PET?

Thanks in advance

[Geoffrey]