Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!pyrdc!pyrnj!rutgers!att!ihuxv!tedk
From: tedk@ihuxv.ATT.COM (Kekatos)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Speech Chips (was: Re: Votrax Vocabulary)
Summary: ideas about speech chips and speech solutions
Keywords: Speech chips Votrax SC-01 Vocabulary Phoneme
Message-ID: <2908@ihuxv.ATT.COM>
Date: 9 Oct 88 22:13:46 GMT
References: <1052@bucket.UUCP> <534@flyer.apctrc.UUCP> <2846@ihuxv.ATT.COM> <720@m10ux.UUCP>
Reply-To: tedk@ihuxv.UUCP (55624-Kekatos,T.G.)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Naperville, Illinois
Lines: 63

In article <720@m10ux.UUCP> rgr@m10ux.UUCP (Duke Robillard) writes:
|In article <2846@ihuxv.ATT.COM> tedk@ihuxv.UUCP (55624-Kekatos,T.G.) writes:
|>Review and Information on B.G Micro Text to Speech Board.
|>         COMPUTALKER SPEECH SYNTHESIZER
|>from  B.G. MICRO  (214) 271-5546  (Dallas TX)
|
|    There's also a speech synthesizer for IBM-ish PC's from a company
|called COVOX. 675 Conger Street, Eugene, Oregon, 97402 (503) 342-1271.
|It's about $70.  It consists of a speaker/amp box, about 4 inches high,
|which uses a 9 volt battery and a little box (with the D/A chip) that
|plugs into the parallel port.  It's called the Speech Thing.  comes with
|device drivers and some examples in basic and C (mostly basic) and a 
|program to turn ASCII text into speech. It's pretty cool.
|
|    Covox also sells a A/D speech converter.  This consists of a microphone
|and a 1/2 size board.  It's suppose to generate input for the Speech 
|Thing mentioned above.  This costs some more (about $90) and I don't have
|it yet so I can't say if it's cool or not.
|
||       Duke Robillard           UUCP:   {backbone!}att!m10ux!rgr

There is one thing that needs to be understood.  

The COMPUTALKER board is a stand-alone hardware solution. The only 
thing that one needs to do is pass ASCII english text to the 
COMPUTALKER via a serial port.  The board does the rest.  

I have printed material from COVOX on their products that are 
mentioned above. There product is only a D/A converter
with a speaker.  Your computer must do the rest. All the text-to-speech
conversion be processed by *your* computer. If you have several different
computers (as I have), you must have a version of the COVOX software
for each computer. 

Granted, the COVOX solution IS more flexible, allowing the user to 
record/playback ANY sound(s).  But there is a software dependency that
could be a problem to some (non-standard) systems.  

Personally, I own two computer systems (Victor-9000) that have a CODEC
chip on the motherboard. (I also have the Victor option board that allows
recording.) A CODEC chip is a COder-DECoder. It is something like a 
A/D - D/A.   Using *software* one can record and playback ANY sound
from audio input.  I have a small application that allows one
to record "samples" of audio (up to 4.5 secords), each sample on a 
key on the keyboard. Then in playback mode, the keys can to pressed
in any order to playback the "samples" (operating something like a 
sampling keyboard). 

Surely, This could also be done with the COVOX products. 

My point is...  That for speech synth only, I feel that one of the
many hardware solutions, such as the COMPUTALKER or a VOTRAX box,
is a better value.  

(In the above context, when I say "hardware solution", I mean 
some type of dedicated system that performs the processing work.)

This is only my own opinion. 

Ted G. Kekatos
UUCP: ..!att!ihuxv!tedk                     (312) 979-0804
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill South, IX-1F-460
Naperville & Wheaton Roads - Naperville, Illinois. 60566 USA