Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!portal!cup.portal.com!thad
From: thad@cup.portal.com
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Votrax Vocabulary
Message-ID: <9070@cup.portal.com>
Date: 14 Sep 88 08:08:58 GMT
References: <1052@bucket.UUCP>
Organization: The Portal System (TM)
Lines: 44
XPortal-User-Id: 1.1001.2826

You're in luck (re: Votrax vocabulary).  I used to use those a lot; were
quite impressive at trade shows and the like.

What I did was acquire a copy of the Funk & Wagnalls Standard Dictionary
of the English Language, International Edition.  This contains(ed) the
IPA (Int'l Phonetic Alphabet) for the pronunciation of all the words in the
dictionary.  Using that book, I was able to constuct phrases and sentences
that sounded decent on the first try; then a little tweaking would bring the
speech right into line.

Re: some references on Votrax vocabulary building:

Bell System Technical Journal, vol.60, No. 7, Sept.1981, pp. 1621-1631

Heathkit Voice Synthesis Kit (includes chips, too!)

BYTE, September 1981, Ciarcia's column, page 38

BYTE, Feb. 1981, page 164

ELECTRONICS, Feb 10, 1981, page 118

BYTE, June 1981, page 384

BYTE, June 1981, page 46 (Ciarcia)

BYTE, Feb. 1981, page 36

ELECTRONICS, Feb 10, 1981, page 122

ELECTRONICS, April 10, 1980, page 113

ELECTRONICS, August 31, 1978, page 109



Those refs are all to articles beginning on the cited page(s).

I had (have?) programs on DECSYSTEM-20, C64, and several homebrews, all using
the SC-01 chip to great effect.

Good luck with your project!

Thad Floryan [thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ...!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad]