The CallText 5010 was still listed on Hawking's site as of 2015. In 2011, Hawking's research assistant Sam Blackburn said Hawking still used a version of DECtalk identified on its board as the 'Calltext 5010' manufactured in 1988 by SpeechPlus, Inc., because he identified with it and had not heard a voice he liked better. Hawking used a version of the DECtalk voice synthesizer for several years and came to be associated with the unique voice of the device. A notable user was Stephen Hawking, who was unable to speak due to a combination of severe disabilities caused by ALS as well as an emergency tracheotomy. DECtalk can be used as part of a speech generating device for those unable to speak.The company, Med-Fax, created by David Grober in 1986, used the DECtalk on an IBM platform, making it one of the early cross platform applications (DEC to IBM).

One of the early uses was a 'text to voice' system that read an individual's emergency medical information (medications, allergies, doctor, insurance and contact info stored in a database) to hospitals telephoning in about patients presenting at emergency rooms.DECtalk's Perfect Paul preset voiced station identifications on many NWR stations until the CRS was replaced by a new system, called the 'Broadcast Message Handler' (BMH), in 2016. As of 2003 it had all but been replaced by a far more modern engine called Speechify from SpeechWorks (not to be confused with the iOS app of the same name). The DECtalk engine was notably used in the US National Weather Service's first 'Console Replacement System' (CRS) installations in the late 1990s for NOAA Weather Radio.These phonetic spellings could also include a tone indicator which DECtalk would use when enunciating the phonetic components. DECtalk understood phonetic spellings of words, allowing customized pronunciation of unusual words.

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