Although I am somewhat biased toward Ultra Hal, one
really needs to "test" all the various bots before making
an informed decision! heh!!
Therefore, I'd recommend checking out the following site:
http://www.geocities.com/brizglace/Once there, click on the A to Z listings. There's even
quite a nice listing of non-english bots. One might find
a few dead links mixed in and a few that are older DOS
bots, but it's nice to know that someone took the time
to compile all of them!
I think a previous thread mentioned some features to look
for in a chatbot (can't remember just where) but it went
something like;
Does the bot / brain allow modification?
Can it remember / learn from conversations?
Can it associate or infer?
Can it form it's own conversations instead of a "canned" response?
Does it accept / use speech recognition?
Can it produce a voice using TTS w/lip-sync?
Can it remember dates, appointments and remind you of them?
Can it open/run programs for you?
(for me) Is it a stand alone program or does it have to reside on someone elses web location?
Does it accept "plug-ins" (skins, brain files, scripts, etc.)
This should give you a good base with which to start. BTW, Hal does all of the above mentioned items and more! Hint!
Hope this helps you decide.
