This page is no longer the current best place for Talking Moose information.

The new Talking Moose website is where things are up-to-date

Here’s a bit of history:

I am Steven Halls, the creator of the original Talking Moose.

 
 

I created it in 1986, and it became very popula and spread around the world. In 1992 it won an "Eddie" award in 1992. More detail about that award from Macuser magazine here. There a Wikipedia article on the Talking Moose

In 1997, it was re-created and modernized (for Macintosh computers) by Uli Kusterer, as Uli’s Moose.

In 2007 it was recreated for windows PCs by Aaron Lambert (with my cooperation), as Talking Moose XP, which got posted onto softpedia.

I was not proud of that 2007 version on softpedia, and so I took over control myself and began a 3D moose project. Meanwhile, I’ve removed the downloadable old version.

On a personal note, let me tell you why I still like the Talking Moose after all these years, and give some advice for using it.

There is a tendency to let him speak too often, because he’s very funny and you want to hear a lot in a hurry. But for long term enjoyment, I recommend restraint, and set the timer to no sooner than 15 minutes. Then he won’t be repeatedly interrupting you while you are talking to someone else.

I personally really like the feature of the Moose telling you the time, like "Its 3 o’clock pm", every hour. I love the "speak the weather report" feature, but I set the timer
so its only telling me the weather every 4 hours, which works out nicely for when I’m ready to leave the office for lunch or to go home.

The Moose has mellowed and changed character gradually over the years. He says much fewer things that are critical of you, and has added many hundreds of new jokes. So now the Moose is more like a joke-telling machine, and with over a 2,000 phrases, it’s an extensive library of humor!

The default microsoft voices are not very good. I found better voices are available on the internet.

Some jokingly suggest that the Talking Moose might be the best software of all-time. And it’s fame as a historical talking software personality is clear from this article wishing that today’s talking GPS software had more personality, like the Moose or John Cleese.

Sept 21, 2010, Update: A new website talkingmoose.ca has been created, to show pictures and blog comments about the development of a new 3D talking Moose.

Dec 14, 2014 update. The 3D project has been slow but successful. I updated the style of my halls.md website, and removed some of the old links that used to be on this page.