Say It v3.00
The Language Tutor

"The computer literally speaks to you in the native 
tongue"

This product is SHAREWARE.

SHAREWARE means ONLY if you like it, do you pay for it. 
It is a way for you to examine the program before 
purchase.  Shareware is a means for software firms to 
distribute and advertise their software at no cost to all 
corners of the globe.  The result is that there are no 
advertising costs to pass on to you the consumer, hence 
the stuff is much less expensive. Sadly this great system 
is abused and some people don't pay for the goods, which 
forces the prices of software up. In other words, you may 
legally have this on your hard disc but please send us 
the registration fee.

You can receive the latest copies of this program in your 
Internet
mailbox at any point registered or not by sending a short 
note
to mike@msmith.zynet.co.uk

Who owns it?:
=============

The sound samples and the program are copyright of  MD 
Smith 1993-1996

        26 Grenville Road
        Saint Judes
        Plymouth
        PL4 9PY
        0752-667599

        mike@msmith.zynet.co.uk
        FIDO: 2:254/27.0 'Mike Smith'

The SampPlayer module is copyright of David Radford. 
Special thanks to him for his permission to let the 
module 'stand alone'.  SampPlayer Module is a part of 
!Player which plays compressed Armadeus sound samples. 
!Compress compresses them to 50% of their original size 
whereas, other compressors would only give you about a 
10% savings. !Compress also uncompresses samples.  
!Player and !Compress are in the 'public domain', but are 
copyright of David Radford. Send me a disc and a stamp 
and I will send you these programs free of charge.

FIDO: 2:250/219.0 'David Radford'

Registration
============

To register this product send:

30.00 UK

Send a cheque or postal order in your country's currency.
 
Registration gives you a full site-licence automatically.  
I never have understood penalising your client, because 
they generally have more money or machines.


The Creation of the Program:
============================

While I was working in a school one day I saw a foreign 
language teacher's aide quizzing a student on the meaning 
of spanish words in a corner of the classroom and the 
idea for the SayIt series was born. They were performing 
a task very similar to what this program does and I 
thought, "Gee, I can get a robot to do that!"  I borrowed 
some sampling equipment (computerese for 'recording', 
'cuz you don't actually record you just grab 'samples' of 
sounds) and began to experiment.  My first experiments 
were very disappointing I found that only 40 spoken words 
could fit on an 800K floppy diskette.  I nearly threw the 
idea in the bin, but I persevered for another two weeks 
and found all of the methods I would needed to create the 
program.  The actual program, then called !Dis-le was 
written in a weekend, but used english words for the 
testing.  I began to advertise in the newspaper for a 
french speaker.  A very vivacious woman by the name of 
Catherine applied for the job.  From the second I heard 
her voice on the answering machine I knew she was the 
right one for the job.  We began the recording for !Dis-
le and finished it in 5 sessions and 4 weeks later.  I 
put the program on many of the BBS's and sent a number of 
copies to the magazines, but it took 3 months before 
anything happened.  The program was picked up by one of 
the computing magazines and the rest is basically 
history.  The program began to snowball and at this 
writing 2 and a half years down the line the program is 
on its tenth national write-up with another expected 
soon.  It is probably one of the most widely used modern 
language resources in schools and by private individuals 
in England.  It is most definitely my all time greatest 
hit.  If there is such a thing in computer software.

One of the sad parts is that in the 3 months it took to 
get the project off the ground Catherine became 
disillusioned with the project and moved away up north 
with her husband two days before the first magazine 
article.  I think she thought the project would go 
nowhere and has not yet bothered to contact me with her 
new address.  Hence her royalties are sitting in a bank 
account drawing interest.  This means that the new french 
speaker is now Jean-Franois.

After a while I began to receive complaints from teachers 
that the word set didn't match that of the GCSE word list 
and they weren't organised by topics.  Therefore, step I 
added the 2200 words and they now match of the 1994 GCSE 
word list.  Another complaint I got was that it wasn't 
varied enough and needed a bit more to it so I have now 
added:

A Training Mode
Multi-Choice Quiz
Spelling Tester
Dictionary
Face Behind the Voice
Word Search
Mix 'n' Match


Getting Help:
=============

The SayIt series has been programmed to respond to 
Acorn's !Help program found on the App disc in Risc-OS 2 
and on the icon bar in Risc-OS 3+.

All computer terms described in the dictionary at the end 
of this manual.

In an effort to save you the user money I have not 
produced a written manual. A manual will cost each 
customer about 6.   Sadly the cost has to be passed on 
to you the consumer so I am only producing the manual in 
this Help file.  I am hoping this will work as well and 
save you about 6.  If you need a printed manual, write 
or phone and we will work something out.  The program in 
this, the third version, has also had a lot of changes 
and I fear that there will be many mistakes or omissions, 
as well as bugs, so I am a bit hesitant to boil anything 
in oil yet.

If you need additional help with SayIt, phone or write, 
even unregistered users will receive a warm welcome.

Installation:
=============

There are a number of discs. Each of the discs have a 
portion of the program.  Decide where you want the 
program to go and drag the first bit of the program 
there.  It doesn't matter about the order you stick the 
discs in the machine.  It also doesn't matter if you drag 
a disc there twice, but don't skip one and don't hold 
down shift when you are performing the copy!  When the 
first disc is finished insert the next one and drag the 
program to the same spot.  Keep up the process until all 
of the discs have been fed into the machine.  The 
computer will not prompt you, other than the copy process 
will be complete when all of the information is 
transferred from each disc.

Machine Requirements:
=====================

This program will require a hard disc with about 10 
megabytes  of free disc space.  You will only be able to 
run it on very fast networks like Nexus or Ethernet.  
Econet will not suffice, it will work for the dictionary 
though. A minimum of 4Mb RAM will be needed as well.

How to work the program:
========================

Main Activity Window

When the program loads a flag of the respective country 
will load on the icon bar.  

If you click the middle (menu) button over this icon you 
will have a list of three choices:  

Info, Earphones, Quit

'Quit' will stop the program.  Neat huh?

'Earphones' will send all of the sound of the program 
only to the Archimedes headphone socket in the back of 
the computer.  This is for late night or classroom study.  
If you have one of these super-duper monitors with a 
speaker in it, permanently wired to the computer this 
will not work,  nor will it work with a RiscPC or above. 
Thankfully, Acorn finally got their act together and when 
you plug in headphones on a RiscPC you automatically 
disable the sound.  The Earphone mechanism will not 
interrupt the other parts of the Archimedes sound system, 
like the 'error beep'.  It only redirects the speaking of 
the SayIt Series.

Info will open a window explaining who wrote the program, 
its status, what the purpose of the program is, and most 
important what version you have and the day it was 
compiled. 

Opening the Main window:
========================

Clicking the mouse on the flag on the icon bar will pop 
up a window.  

You have the title, the copyright message and six 
options:

Training Mode, Multi-choice, Spelling Test, Dictionary, 
the Voice, Word Search, Mix 'n' Match or Quit.

A whole section is devoted to each one of these sections 
but in brief:

The training mode will cycle through the spoken words of 
the topics you have chosen allowing you to hear them and 
see the translation.  No score is kept at this point.  At 
any point you can ask to see the entire single word 
entry. And you can ask to have the word repeated. 

The multi-choice section quizzes you on the meanings of 
words.  There is no time limit and a score is kept, if 
you are interested.

The spelling test will quiz you on how words are spelled.  
There is a give-up option and a score. 

The dictionary will allow a user to search for a word. 
They can see the meaning and there is a 1:4 chance that a 
pronunciation will accompany the word.  The user has 
about 12 different ways to find the word. 

The voice is literally this, the face behind the voice 
and a little synopsis of the speaker.  The computer will 
say hello and good-bye on entry and exit.  If this isn't 
gimmicky....what is?

The word search routine will produce a 14 x 14 grid of 
letters.  It is up to you to detect 15 words hidden in 
the text.  The words may be backward, normal, or 
diagonal, or a combination of two of these options.  
There are two separate games, one will display the 
foreign language words to find the herder of the two will 
display the french and the student then has to find that 
word via translation.

The mix and match will give you 10 words and then 
unscramble these on screen.  You are then given an 
indefinite amount of time to drag the correct foreign 
word to the correct English word.

The Quit option will stop the program.  It doesnt follow 
the normal protocols of Acorn machines but I figure that 
most users will not be used to using the computer.

If click menu over the main activity window you will have 
a list of about 15 topics to choose from.  There is also 
a higher and lower level to choose from.   There are 
about 45 actual topics but to make things more simplistic 
I have classed the 'sub-topics' with their respective 
'topics'. By default all of the topics are selected. You 
must deselect the topics you aren't interested in.  If 
you click the Select button on the mouse the menu will 
close.  If you click the Adjust button on the mouse the 
menu will remain open and allow a second choice.  This 
should be standard with all Acorn software. You must be 
careful not to deselect ALL topics.  This will cause the 
computer to start looking for a list of four words from a 
list of zero words and will literally take forever, 
searching endlessly and make the computer appear to 
freeze or crash. Those users with a Risc PC can press 
Alt+Break to cease this one problem.

Novice users skip the next couple of paragraphs.

Adventurous users only:
=======================

The Messages file contains the menu structure for this 
program.  It is stored in Desklib messages format in the 
application directory.samples.language_you_are_working_in 
under:

menu.wmenu:!Personal ID,!Family,!Home,!Geographical & 
Weather,!Travel/Transport, !Holiday, !Accommodation, 
!Food, !Shopping,!Service, !Health, !Entertainment, 
!Relations,!Education, !Language, !Money| !Lower Level 
Words, !Higher Level Words

each of the !'s mean tick and if you want to completely 
disallow an option place a '~' char in place of the '!'.  
This will allow you to customise your version of the 
program.  At this writing the messages file is in English 
rather than the working language.  If you want you could 
translate the messages file to the working language.  Do 
not upset the order of the topics as they relate the the 
single letter codes in the topics field of the database.  
The database is stored as Words in the same directory.  
The file format is:

foreign word<linefeed>
english word<linefeed>
word type & plural<linefeed>     (word type code x 100) + 
plural code (0 at the moment)
topics<linefeed>
sound<linefeed>
etc.

Training Mode:
==============

As was said earlier, the training mode will cycle through 
the spoken words of the topics you have chosen allowing 
you to hear them and see the translation.  No score is 
kept at this point.  At any point you can ask to see the 
entire single word entry. And you can ask to have the 
word repeated.  

The Window itself: 
==================
The window will open and say a word.  You have an 
indefinite amount of time to study the word.

Clicking menu over this window will have no effect.

Foreign Word Icon:
==================

In the example of the manual clicking either Adjust or 
Select on the up-raised button will produce the single 
word entry window to open.  See the single word entry bit 
further down to find out more about it.

English Word Icon:
==================
The training mode window has immediately below the word 
'valise' the translation 'suitcase'.  Clicking on this 
will have no effect.

Next Icon:
==========

This cycles through to the next word.  The program has an 
intelligent mechanism built in at this point to disallow 
you hearing the same word twice until you have heard all 
of the words.  It may happen from time to time that you 
do hear the same word twice due to the fact the formula 
that the computer goes by is somewhat simplistic, but the 
odds are greatly reduced.

Repeat Icon: 
============

If you click on the Repeat button the computer will 
repeat the word.  There is no scoring for this and you 
will not be penalised at any point for asking to hear a 
word repeated.  Remember this is the training section. 
This button is for that time someone interrupted you or 
you just didn't hear the word.

Stop Icon:
==========

This will take the computer back to the main activity 
icon and stop the present section.

The Multi-Choice Quiz Game:
===========================

This is a left over from !Linguist, the original !Dis-le 
and the rest of the SayIt Series.  It has been completely 
redesigned.  One of the most notable features is the 
absence of the scoreboard.

The Scoreboard:
===============

There is a scoreboard.  There are two ways to view it.  
Both mechanisms work by pressing the middle button over 
the spelling window or the multi-choice window.  When you 
click the middle button over one of these windows a menu 
will come up, with only one option 'Score'.  If you 
select 'Score' the scoreboard will remain open until you 
manually close it.  If you follow the arrow to the right 
the scoreboard will only remain open until the next time 
you click somewhere other than the scoreboard itself.  

Clicking on any bit of the scoreboard will be a complete 
waste of time. It is only displays information.

A teacher can use this to gauge the success or failure of 
a student.  After awhile you learn to realise how many 
tries a student can get through, and the computer won't 
lie about the score.  Mind you this doesn't stop a 
student clicking on New Game.

The scoreboard reads correct, wrong, attempts, and 
percentage in that order from top to bottom. You should 
try to achieve above 70% at all times. Where I come from 
(the USA) the grading is as follows:

A.........90% - 100% (excellent)
B.........80% - 89%   (good)
C.........70% - 79%  (satisfactory)
D.........60% - 69%  (poor)
F..........59% or below (failing)

The Actual Multi-Choice Quiz:
=============================

In the recessed icon is a foreign word.  The object is to 
choose which one of the four buttons has the right answer 
and to click on that button with the Select  button. 

If you click the right answer the speaker will tell you 
so with a 'praise phrase' and will then move on to the 
next word.  If you are wrong the computer will  tell you 
so with a 'condemning phrase' and will not move on the 
the next word.  You have an undetermined amount of time 
to choose an answer.  You will be penalised for making 
the wrong guess but not for taking your time. It is 
assumed that the user could wish to be doing other tasks 
at the same time and this is just a time filler.

Under the old game there were seven rights phrases and 
seven wrong.  This number has now been increased to ten 
each.

Hide Word Tick Box: 
===================

This will force the foreign word to be replaced by seven 
asterisks.  There will always be seven stars, and it has 
no bearing on how many letters are in the word.  The 
object of hiding the word is so that you, the user, have 
no other clues to go by than just the sound of the word.  
Sometimes words can be figured out by just looking at the 
spelling of the word and comparing it to the list.

ADVANCED USERS HINT: If you have a template editor and 
would like the game to always start in hidden word mode 
just turn on the button in the template editor and save 
the file back. Default is off.

Repeat Icon: 
============

If you click on the Repeat button the computer will 
repeat the word.  There is no scoring for this and you 
will not be penalised at any point for asking to hear a 
word repeated.  This button is for that time someone 
interrupted you or you just didn't hear the word. If the 
user is using the 'hidden mode', it will more than likely 
be needful to repeat words at any given time especially 
if you don't have a good set of speakers.

New Game Icon:
============== 

This simply resets the scoreboard to zero and has the 
effect of starting a new game.

Stop Icon: 
==========

This will take the computer back to the main activity 
panel and stop the present section.

The Spelling Test:
==================

As someone who doesn't speak a word of French I find this 
a very frustrating exercise and I have yet to try it with 
English, Swedish, Chinese, Danish, German, or Norwegian, 
where I can get the feel of it, so while I believe it 
works but this may be the buggiest section.  

If you haven't read it yet, please read the section 
entitled scoreboard.

When the window opens the computer will say a word you 
have to put the correct spelling into the writable icon.  
When you think you have done so click on OK or press the 
return key. If you are right the computer will tell you 
so with a 'praise phrase' and will then move on to the 
next word.  If you are wrong the computer will  tell you 
so with a 'condemning phrase' and will not move on the 
the next word.  You have an indefinite amount of time to 
choose an answer.  You will be penalised for making the 
wrong guess but not for taking your time.

Under the old game there were seven rights phrases and 
seven wrong.  This number has now been increased to ten 
each.  There is an additional phrase on the spelling 
called 'nearly'.  You will get this one phrase if more 
than 50% of the word is spelled correctly, but is still 
spelled wrong.

New Game Icon: 
==============

This simply resets the scoreboard to zero and has the 
effect of starting a new game.

Repeat Icon: 
============

If you click on the Repeat button the computer will 
repeat the word.  There is no scoring for this and you 
will not be penalised at any point for asking to hear a 
word repeated.  This button is for that time someone 
interrupted you or you just didn't hear the word.

Keys Icon: This will open another window which acts very 
much like !Chars.  It is a poor substitute for it. I 
would encourage your students to use !Chars instead.  
This will give the user a chance to type international 
keys. At the moment this will append the key to the back 
of the word only, it won't take account of where the 
cursor is.  This will be fixed in one of the next two 
releases.  For the general student this will not pose a 
problem as they will click the key when they need it.

ADVENTUROUS USERS ONLY:
=======================

The Messages file contains the international key string 
for this program.  It is stored in Desklib messages 
format in the application 
directory.samples.language_you_are_working_in under:

int.keys:

You can replace these characters with any you desire but 
they MUST 25 character long when you are done.

Give-up Icon: 
=============

This will put the answer in the writable icon.  You will 
have an indefinite period to examine the word and you 
could also ask to have the word repeated to give you the 
feel of the word.  When you are finished you simply click 
on the OK button or press return. Hint: If there is a 
gold band around an icon it means that you can press 
return instead, if your window has claimed the caret (the 
title bar is yellow).

Stop Icon:
===========

This will take the computer back to the main activity 
icon and stop the present section.

OK Icon: 
========

When you are finished you simply click on the OK button 
or press return. Hint: If there is a gold band around an 
icon it means that you can press return instead, if your 
window has claimed the caret (the title bar is yellow).  
If you are correct the computer will give you a 'praise 
phrase' and move on to the next word.  If you are wrong 
the computer will give you a 'condemning phrase' and not 
move on to the next word.  The scoreboard will be 
adjusted accordingly.

The Word Search
===============

The word search program is a simple word search program 
which will allow the student to find 15 words in a 14 x 
14 grid. Basically there are two parts to this exercise 
the first is the easier of the two.  The computer will 
literally tell the student which word he or she is 
looking for. The second will display the English words 
and the student must first translate the word and then 
find it in the square, or find a french word and see if 
it appears in the list.

When the window flies open you will see all of the 
letters before you.  The program will hide words right to 
left, left to right, up and down, down and up, diagonal 
up forward, diagonal up backward, diagonal down forward, 
and last but not least diagonal down backward.  The 
program is merciless in the fact it isn't lenient in the 
directions is picks.  It also crams alot in a tiny space.  
Under the right circumstances the computer could try up 
to 15,000 times to put 15 words in 196 squares.

A second window called the words window will open when 
the Word Search window does. It lists the words you are 
looking for. I doubt it will be difficult to invent words 
that are in the foreign language but if you try to click 
on them the computer will count them as wrong.

To begin the exercise click on one square.  If the square 
is valid it will go grey. If it isn't the computer will 
beep. Once you have found an entire word you can click on 
the Words window and the will be marked.  This is meant 
to be nothing more than a reminder, the computer will not 
mark out the words automatically. You carry on until all 
the words have been found.

The Scoreboard:
==============

Press the middle (menu) button on the mouse over this 
window. It is either a pop-up or full-time window. See 
above under Scoreboard for more information.

Give-up Icon:
=============

By pressing this button the computer will reveal the 
answer, all invalid letters will be blanked out revealing 
only the valid ones.

New Game Icon:
===========

This will start a whole new game.  All of the words and 
letters will be remixed and the score set back to zero.

Words Icon:
===========

The words window may get in the way from time to time and 
it will be needful to close it.  This button re-opens the 
window.

Stop Icon:
==========

This will stop the game and return you to the main 
activities window, 

The Mix 'n' Match Exercise
==========================

The Mix 'n' Match Exercise will display ten foreign words 
and their ten English words.  The computer will mix them 
up prior to display.  Your job is to drag the correct 
English word to the correct foreign word. When you have 
done so the exercise ends.  Each time you get a word/
combination right the computer will tell you so and the 
pairs will rearrange and go grey.  When you get it wrong 
the computer will tell you so and not much else will 
happen.

The Scoreboard:
==============

Press the middle (menu) button on the mouse over this 
window. It is either a pop-up or full-time window. See 
above under Scoreboard for more information.


New Game Icon:
===========

This will start a whole new game.  All of the words and 
letters will be remixed and the score set back to zero.

Stop Icon:
==========

This will stop the game and return you to the main 
activities window, 

The Dictionary:
===============

The purpose of the dictionary is to give the user an 
online database of spoken words.   As an added bonus 
there are additional unspoken words.  Eventually it is my 
hope that the unspoken words will be spoken too.  There 
are plans afoot to put this on to CD-ROM, but I 
understand that magneto-optical may over take CD-ROM in 
the next year and a half.  My understanding is as well 
that Microsoft are now gearing up and buying the 
machinery to produce their software solely on magneto-
optical.   There is talk of everyone having 250 megabyte 
floppy disc drives, soon.

The dictionary is one of the more complicated features of 
the program.

When you select the dictionary icon.  You will go to the 
'search' window.  Here the computer wants you to select 
criteria to perform a search.  First of all you will need 
to type in a 'key' (something for the computer to search 
for).  For example, suppose you want to search for 
'journal' in French. You would type 'journal' and press 
return or click on the 'Search' button. The computer will 
come back and say it has found two answers, Journal & 
Journalier.

You must though ensure if you are searching for a French 
word you need the French button ticked. If you are 
searching for an English word you must have the English 
button ticked.  Important: when you switch language 
direction (ie from French to English and back again) the 
computer will egg-timer, freeze, but only momentarily. 
The computer is resorting the entire dictionary for 
display purposes.  It may take as long as 40 seconds, so 
be patient and try to do all of your searching on one 
side first and then the other.

If the computer finds more than one match you will open 
the dictionary page.  It is meant to represent a page in 
a dictionary.  In this dictionary you can move backward 
and forward through the pages in leaps of 10's or 1's.  
If you come to the end or the beginning of the dictionary 
the computer will only let you go as far as there are 
pages, but it will take you as far as it can.  This 
dictionary is unique in the fact that it only shows you 
the words you want.  There is no thumbing through pages 
and pages of mindless words.  The dictionary page will 
report how many words are in its dictionary and how many 
matches you found with the last 'key'.  It also reports 
what page you are on and how many pages you have total.  
All words with a sound are marked by a cross/dagger.

If the computer only finds one match you will be taken 
directly to the single entry page.  If you are on the 
dictionary page you can see the individual entry for that 
word by simply clicking on it.  From the single entry 
page you can request the computer to say the word or hear 
it pronounced.  If the button is greyed or it refuses to 
speak the word there is a problem with that word.

There are eight types of searches you can perform:

is equal to:  this will report those words which are an 
exact match of the 'key'.  For example: journal will only 
report journal and not journalier. 

contains: will find journal with a 'key' of 'our'

begins with:  will find journal with a 'key' of 'jo'

ends with: will find journal with a 'key' of 'al'

sounds like: will find snake with a 'key' of 'snack'.  
The first letters must match

sounds near: will find cynic with a 'key' of 'snake'

has in it: will find sing and go with a 'key' of 'gns'

show all: will find every word in the dictionary.

You have two more options to broaden the search for the 
word.  

Strip Accents will convert caf to cafe,  Huse to Hause, 
and so forth.

Omit Found will reverse the find.  First it goes through 
and searches for what you said not to and then everything 
that was found becomes not found and everything not found 
is found.

Stop Icon: This will take the computer back to the main 
activity icon and stop the present section.

Search Icon: This executes the search.  Notice the gold 
band, this means pressing the return key has the same 
effect.

The Voice

I have purchased talk tapes in the past where you feel 
the person speaking definitely has an english accent. I 
assure you that all speakers in the SayIt series are 
native to that language, and that the language they speak 
is their mother tongue. I have been assured that they 
have no speech impediments and speak a 'main stream' 
dialect of that language (ie for english you will not 
have someone with a southern USA drawl).

I have also included this to give a more personal aspect 
to the program.

OK Icon: This will take the computer back to the main 
activity icon and stop the present section.


The Quit Button

Well, humm, I don't think I am going to enter into a 5 
week dissertation on this one.


Adding your own words

Not for novice users

It is possible to add your own words.  You need a 
microphone and sampling software.  The samples must start 
life as Armadeus files.  Each word must be cut into a 
separate file, and must be titled equal to the first ten 
characters of the word.  Spaces are replaced with Hard 
Spaces (Alt+Space bar), because the filing system 
disallows space characters

Once you have words in Armadeus file type store them in a 
directory. When you have all of the words you require.  
Drop the directory on to the !Compress icon on the icon 
bar.  !Compress will batch process all of the sound 
samples in that directory.  !Compress software is 
available from me free of charge with a disc and a stamp, 
or 1 for disc and P&P.

When the computer has compressed the sound samples sort 
the files alphabetically into the samples directories 
inside the application.  Each letter may only have 4 
directories to hold each letter (so, 4 x 77 words).

Inform the file Words of the existence of the new samples 
by inserting data in the format:
foreign word<linefeed>
english word<linefeed>
word type & plural<linefeed>             (word type code 
x 100) + plural code (0 at the moment)
topics<linefeed>                        'APap' - 
uppercase is lower level, lower case is higher level, a = 
1st, p=last
sound<linefeed>                             'Y' = sound 
exists all others discounted.
etc.

You are done. Bob's your uncle, piece of cake.

There is an upper limit of 9,000 words, at the moment.  
The computer counts the words of dictionary automatically 
as it loads the file.

You can type these words you wish to add to a database, 
save out the file as CSV (Comma Separated Values).  Strip 
the quotation marks and convert the commas to linefeeds.



Notice Regarding New Template Policy (17-Sep-1994)


After getting my new Risc PC I have adopted a new policy 
regarding windows and the use of anti-aliased fonts.

Prior to the introduction of Risc OS 3 my feelings were 
that you could not ensure that a user would have specific 
font types to include them in a window.  Therefore I 
simply used System Font.

With the introduction of Risc OS 3 my feelings were that 
I could now rely on either Corpus, Homerton, or Trinity, 
being present, and started trying to give my windows a 
'cleaner' look by using one or a combination of the 
above.  Sadly, this meant having having two template/
window files for each program.

With the introduction of Risc OS 3.5 on my Risc PC, Acorn 
have now made it so that ALL windows use anti-alias fonts 
and the user now chooses which he/she prefers.  Since 
this simplifies the creation of a template and hence the 
program giving the user what they want rather than what I 
want ALL programs of mine are reverting back to System 
Font.  I ASSUME that one day soon a similar feature will 
be available for all Arc users, and am starting to become 
prepared for that day.  So in the meantime, all users 
with Risc-OS 3.0, 3.1, sorry you're back to the Lego/
Duplo-look.  And my programs will refuse to support anti-
aliased fonts in templates.


Copyright Information

This program is commercial software Therefore, passing it 
on to friends, use on secondary machines off premises, 
selling by unauthorised distributors, and general 
stealing of this software is prohibited.

Only registered users may 'part out' the program for 
their private use.

The SampPlayer module IS NOT PD and must not be separated 
from !Player or any of the !SayIt series. David Radford 
has been kind enough to give special permission to me for 
this purpose, for which I am forever in his debt. 
 
!Dis-le 1 & 2 were shareware. PD Libraries are NOT 
allowed to pass on version 3.0+ but they may purchase the 
full program and sell it off for which they will receive 
a standard retailer's discount.



             ** FRENCH INCORRECT PHRASES **
             ==============================

Foreign Word	English Word	Sample Name

Ce n'est pas a !	It's not that!	W5
Erreur !	Mistake!	W6
Faux !	Wrong!	W1
Incorrect !	Incorrect!	W2
Inexact !	Not quite right!	W3
Mauvais !	Sorry!	W4
Mauvaise rponse !	Wrong answer!	W8
MMM-MMM-MMM	 Close but no cigar.	W7
Non !	No!	W0
Nul !	Zero right!	W9

Presque !                	Nearly Right!          
	W99

 This is a special sound sample.  If you get this one 
you have over half of the letters in the spelling quiz.


             ** FRENCH INCORRECT PHRASES **
             ==============================

Foreign Word	English Word	Sample Name

Bon !	Good!	R8
Bonne rponse	Good answer!	R3
C'est bien !	(It is) Good!	R2
C'est vrai !	It's true!	R6
Exact !	Exact!	R9
Juste !	Exactly!	R7
Oui	Yes	R0
Super !	Super!	R5
trs bien !	Very good!	R4
Tu as raison !	You're right!	R1


Dictionary of Computer Terms

Adjust - Gudsundheit!  This is the last or right-hand 
most button of the mouse.  See your user's manual.

Armadeus - is a special type of file type.  It is similar 
to the fact that a sprite file differs from a draw file.  
An Armadeus sound sample describes a special type of 
sound recording.  For you techies out there, the file 
format is first byte * 100 equals playing speed and the 
remainder is the raw data jammed through the speaker.

BBS - Bulletin Board System.  A computer left on 24 hours 
a day, 7 days a week with a modem attached.  Computer 
people can call this special computer and exchange ideas, 
send mail, messages, put on or pull off a computer 
program.  These are generally free to access and are run 
by people who do it for a hobby.  These same said 
individuals are like radio hams only they use telephone 
lines.  BBS's generally have up to date information on 
the newest ideas in computing.  The magazines watch them 
and it is this information they report on two months 
hence.
Claimed the Caret - Sadly the computer is not psychic and 
with all of these windows flying around the poor computer 
doesn't know which window to give the letters from the 
keyboard to unless you have Claimed the Caret.  You do 
this by clicking in the window.  When the title bar goes 
yellow you have Claimed the Caret or received 'input 
focus'

Commercial - This product is for sale.  You are not 
allowed to be in possession of the program unless you 
have paid for it.  The author receives no reward for 
producing the software other than the sales he makes off 
of it.  He copyrights his efforts, if you duplicate it 
prior to you paying for it you are in breach of the 
copyright law.

Compile - Compiling in computer terms is the act of 
translating the programming instructions in this case, 
the C programming language to a language the computer can 
understand called machine code. This is important because 
one of the instructions in !Dis-le v3 automatically 
inserts the date when this particular set of instructions 
were formulated into the Info window.  Any bugs you have 
are related to that version.

Compressed - Literally a compression routine takes a bits 
of computer data and squashes them to half their size.  
It allows programmers to store twice as much data on a 
disc and saves money in producing and storing data for 
you and me.  Compression is simply a mathematical method 
of coding data.  If you compress data you need the 
uncompressor to work.  A very crued example of 
compression is via substitution.  Take a word like 
'street'.  'Str' and 'ee' both appear frequently in 
english text.  If we substituted 'str' for '*' and 'ee' 
for #, street would become '*#t'. We have a savings of 
50% going from 6 letters down to 3.  This is important to 
Dis-le because all of the sound samples  are compressed 
otherwise the program wouldn't even fit in most peoples 
computers.  They are decompressed before each playing of 
a recording but it happens so fast you don't know it.

Computerese - the dialect of english spoken by computer 
nerds in order to express ideas not understood in 
Shakespeare's day, or 1994 for that matter.

FIDO - is an addressing system for people with modems.  
This is part of the information super-highway people talk 
about.  Kinda' like Telex but a different system.  
Letters can be mailed all over the world for free using 
E-mail and is a much nicer way to communicate.

Icon  - this word means symbol.  This manual and the 
program will often interchange icon for button or box.  
RISC-OS uses many icons or symbols to represent ideas 
which would take too much room if they were written out.  
This illustration contains many of the icons used by the 
program (ie. push-to back, close icon, toggle size, the 
arrows and slider icons, radio buttons, button, gold band 
buttons, and writable icons.)

Icon bar - this thing. 

Magneto-optical as form of data storage.  It is a cross 
between CD-ROM and floppy disc.  It is feasible at the 
moment to store 128 Mb on a 3.5 inch disc.

Megabyte - a unit of measurement.  Roughly it equates to 
one million letters or 277 pages of typed text.

Menu - The middle button on the mouse, or the thing that 
pops up when you press the middle button on the mouse. 
See your user's manual.

Module - a small, independent section of the programming 
code, usually shared by a number of programs. In Dis-le 
v3 the Sampplayer module is the engine that actually 
plays the recordings.  Each time you hear a recording the 
program actually halts and allows Sampplayer to take over 
briefly and then Sampplayer returns control to Dis-le.  
If a module was a human it would be referred to as an 
assistant.

Public Domain - the author of the program doesn't desire 
to retain the copyright and wants no financial reward for 
his efforts.  You are legally allowed to do with the 
program what you wish,  alter it, sell it, pass it 
around, and yes, put your name on it and then copyright 
it yourself, unless the author requests otherwise.

Registration - tell the author of the software that you 
want to use his software and pay the required fee in 
order to do so.

Select - This is the first or the left-hand most button 
of the mouse. See your user's manual.

Shareware means ONLY if you like it, do you pay for it. 
It is a way for you to examine the program before 
purchase.  Shareware is a means for software firms to 
distribute and advertise their software at no cost to all 
corners of the globe by allowing it to pass from friend 
to friend, individual to individual without the fear of 
legal repercussions, like those posed with commercial 
software.  The result is that there are no advertising 
costs to pass on to you the consumer. Hence the stuff is 
much less expensive. Sadly this great system is abused 
and some people don't pay for the goods, which forces the 
prices of software up.

Site-Licence - generally when you buy a program it allows 
you to use the program anywhere on property you own.  A 
school or office may use the program anywhere on that 
premise after they purchase the software, but they may 
not take it to Joe's or the boss' house.  This is looked 
on as an infraction of the copyright law and you are in 
breach.  Basically it means a school with 171 computers 
doesn't have to buy 171 licences.  Generally a site-
licence is 3 times the normal fee.

Sound Samples - This entire program is made up of sound 
samples without them the program would not exist.  A 
sound sample is the snippet of recorded speech you hear. 
It is not the playing of it.  It is the actual recording 
just like the a track of a record only much smaller.  The 
recordings are in files inside the program.  At this 
writing the program is made up of over 2300 data files.

Uncompress - refer to the bit about compression.

User - the person driving the computer.

Writable Icon - usually a white box.  You are able to 
type into this field/box.  When you click on it with 
Select the red cursor should appear generally in the 
center.

