Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!cbmehq!cbmger!peterk
From: peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: amiga speech synthesis
Message-ID: <194@cbmger.UUCP>
Date: 8 Jun 90 08:20:04 GMT
References: <20704@snow-white.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: peterk@cbmger.UUCP (Peter Kittel GERMANY)
Organization: Commodore Bueromaschinen GmbH, West Germany
Lines: 20

In article <20704@snow-white.udel.EDU> kosma%human-torch@stc.lockheed.com (Monty Kosma) writes:
>
>it works?  Does the amiga actually have a speech synthesis chip, or is
>it done through audio samples of phonemes, or what?  
                 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ 
Yes, this way. And there is very tricky software to bind these phonemes
together and make fluent speech of them. What is to be said about quality:
The max. sample rate of the Amiga beyond 18 kHz is far enough for speech
(regard the bandwidth of a telephone with 3 kHz!), only limitation is in
the quality of the digitized phonemes. Frankly speaking, they are such a
pure Texan style American (just for a German ear) that they are nearly
useless for other languages than American. I believe even Britons would
need different phonemes.
All this was done by an external software company and sold to Commodore.
They even had offers to prepare it for other languages, but the charge
was so expensive that noone took it.

-- 
Best regards, Dr. Peter Kittel       E-Mail to 
Commodore Frankfurt, Germany         rutgers!cbmvax!cbmbsw!cbmger!peterk