Yak is the first text to speech engine created for the Newton platform, written by John M. Saccente in 1995.
It speaks English in two voices (one male, one female). It works on Newton OS 1.x; I am not sure about 2.x, however I know that the included "noteyak" package certainly does not work on OS 2.x.
Hear Yak
Each recording is a 50K WAV file. The voices were recorded at the default pitch.
Download as a ZIP archive (cross-platform, recommended for Windows users)
This ZIP archive contains the three Yak packages (stripped of Mac OS-specific data which causes problems on other platforms) and all documentation, which has been converted to plain text. It does not contain the sample code for creating a Yak-aware application, as the files were only useful with the Macintosh version of Newton Toolkit. Still, the documentation should be enough for anyone to write a Yak-aware application. While the Yak readme file says that Yak may only be distributed unmodified, I felt these modifications were necessary to preserve the software, as files created on the classic Mac OS are often hard to use on other platforms and may get damaged if not handled properly.
The three Yak packages
The main Yak package (speechproj1.pkg in the .sit.hqx, yak.pkg in the ZIP)
This is the actual text to speech engine. It must be installed before any other Yak-aware application. This is the only package you are required to install to use Yak.
Note: when this package is installed, an icon will appear in the Extras drawer. Do not tap that icon, because you will either cause Yak to open and waste memory or you will close it, causing any open Yak-aware applications to mysteriously stop working. If you do accidentally tap it, tap it again to reverse the effects.
The control panel (controlproj.pkg in the .sit.hqx, yakctrl.pkg in the ZIP)
The Yak control panel, which lets you change the voice and the pitch and add words to Yak's word list. If this package is not installed, Yak will work fine, but you will not be able to change settings.
noteyak (noteyak.pkg in both archives)
A simple application that reads notes aloud and speaks the time. Because it is a bit large and a bit buggy, you may want to use my YakSpeakNote package.
My Yak-aware packages
I have written these Yak-aware packages. They require a Newton OS 1.x device and Yak must be installed, otherwise they will produce error messages.
YakSpeekMeeting
When this package is installed, meeting reminders will be read aloud by Yak. This only works on English Newton OS 1.x devices, but that should not be a problem because Yak only speaks English anyway.
YakSpeakNote
This package adds a "Speak" item to the routing button in the Notepad. In my opinion, this package is much better than Yak's "noteyak" package (and smaller!). However, it does not speak the time.