I replaced the male voice of my Delorme Street Atlas with a british female voice...

**dmbrown73** · 01-11-2003, 06:09 PM

I replaced the male voice of my Delorme Street Atlas 9.0 with a british female voice that gives just the right James Bond feel to my carputer setup. Here's what I did:

First off, if you are running XP you have to install the MS SAPI 4.0 runtime just te be able to hear the voice prompts in Street Atlas as XP comes standard with SAPI 5.0 which is not compatible with Delorme Street Atlas. BTW, 4.0 can co-exist with 5.0.

Microsoft SAPI 4.0a runtime binaries (824 KB)
http://activex.microsoft.com/activex...pi/spchapi.exe

I was trying all kinds of difficult ways to change the voice when I realized the easiest way was to simply download another Microsoft Agent Character to replace Delorme's default "Floyd" MS Agent character (the little parrot that appears in the taskbar when voice prompts are enabled). The best female voice I found was "Charlie".

Download "Charlie" from here:
http://bellcraft.com/chars/charlie.exe (2.07 MB)

Download Lernout & Hauspie's British English TTS engine from here:
http://activex.microsoft.com/activex...2/lhttseng.exe (2.54 MB)

After installing the previous files, browse to "C:\Windows\msagent\chars" on your Windows system ("C:\Winnt\msagent\chars" for 2000/NT) and copy "Floyd.acs" to a safe location as this is Delorme's default MS Agent character. Now simply rename "Charlie.acs" to "Floyd.acs" and that is all there is to it. Start Delorme Street Atlas, calculate a route, enable GPS voice prompts and you'll discover Floyd sounds a lot more like Moneypenny

**SuperMatty** · 01-11-2003, 08:20 PM

Nothing like a big ol' unobtrusive Datalux strapped on the dash

I played that game for awhile, then I took her housing off and said IN THE DASH YOU GO, HOE!

**ddt** · 01-12-2003, 02:32 AM

Originally posted by SuperMatty
Nothing like a big ol' unobtrusive Datalux strapped on the dash
I played that game for awhile, then I took her housing off and said IN THE DASH YOU GO, HOE!

Nothing like a member chastising another members setup either. Remember.. it's what the individual wants. and if that individual isn’t you then Shhhhhh.

**dmbrown73** · 01-12-2003, 10:09 AM

is that I wanted to be able to remove the display and computer later without any evidence that the computer was ever installed in the car. I used the pop-out cup holder tray assembly mounted above the Jetta's radio. I ordered an identical cup holder assembly from the local VW dealer and had a steel plate cut and welded to fit inside of it. I tapped a screw hole in the back of the plate to hold it in place. It has what looks like a trailer hitch tongue welded to the front of the plate to which I mounted the Datalux using a RAM mount. I did this is so the screen can be swiveled from left to right. I leave it facing me most of the time but it can be turned towards the passenger seat or faced straight back if I have passengers in the backseat. The biggest advantage, however, is that the entire assembly can be pulled out and the original cup holder popped back in place in 5 minutes.

**ddt** · 01-12-2003, 02:01 PM

damned ingenious...

**C4M** · 01-12-2003, 08:17 PM

Originally posted by SuperMatty
Nothing like a big ol' unobtrusive Datalux strapped on the dash

I don't know whether you are a jerk, but that post, followed by that sig give me a pretty good idea...

C!

**ddt** · 01-12-2003, 08:28 PM

Oops, the whole focus of the thread got shifted...

Let me be the first to say thanks for the little tutorial. SA9 is muuuuch nicer to listen to now.

**Defiler** · 01-12-2003, 09:46 PM

Awesome Idea. I will deffinately try this when I get the USB to Serial converter for my GPS.

BTW Do you know if this will work with SA 2003?

Also, great Idea on the screen.

**SuperMatty** · 01-12-2003, 10:08 PM

Gosh, have some prozac will you, C4M? I'm just playing around. I ran that same setup myself for awhile and I distinctly remember the first words that any of my passengers said was always something to do with the big screen they saw sticking out at them. I wasn't trying to berate him for his setup. It's perfectly versatile the way he has fabricated it.

I know it's difficult to understand the tone of voice when a you are reading, but for heaven's sake I put a

after it to show that I meant no malice.

**dmbrown73** · 01-12-2003, 10:17 PM

to switch voices. I have SA Deluxe but I couldn't get the new interface (with the frames and tabs at the bottom of the screen)to work with 640x480 resolution so I stuck with SA9. Here's a thread I found where "cproaudio" mentions how easy it is to switch voices in SA 2003 (the last message in the thread):

gps w/ voice

If anyone knows how to switch SA Deluxe or SA 2003 to 640x480 resolution and still be able to see all of the bottom window please let me know. You CAN run SA Deluxe at 640x480 but half of the bottom window is hidden and that is where all of the various functions are activated. SA9 is perfect for 640x480 screens. The only added functionality that I would like to have in SA9 that SA Deluxe already has is the rotating map feature where the GPS arrow always points up and the map rotates around the arrow.