egul@hp-lsd.COS.HP.COM (Ed Gulczynski - FIS) (11/07/90)
Does anyone know of an 'off the shelf' CMOS one chip IC that will talk? I want something cheap with a predefined set of words/numbers that I can access/concatonate to build a talking clock/timer that is portable and driven of an uP. My first attempt was with Radio Shack's SPO256 and although it works it is too much of a power hog and the voice is not nearly of the quality I hear nowdays. I know JAMECO has one, the DIGITALKERbut haven't checked it out. The software to run the device will be relatively simple and I want everything to work within 8k. Any ideas?
cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us (Crash Gordon) (11/13/90)
The Digitalker chip is _old_! That thing was obsoleted several years ago. But if your project is a low-quantity deal, it may be OK. The Digitalker chip produces audio with a low S/N ratio; the filter circuit given in their data sheet isn't very effective. I have some vocabulary ROMs around somewhere and can give you a couple more pointers. Email me if you're interested in this beast. ----------------------------------------------------- Gordon S. Hlavenka cgordon@vpnet.chi.il.us Disclaimer: Yeah, I said it. So what?
richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) (11/15/90)
>The Digitalker chip is _old_! That thing was obsoleted several years ago. >But if your project is a low-quantity deal, it may be OK. The Digitalker >chip produces audio with a low S/N ratio; the filter circuit given in their >data sheet isn't very effective. So what's more modern? (And hopefully affordable.) -- Richard Foulk richard@pegasus.com
josef@nixdorf.de (Moellers) (11/16/90)
In <1990Nov14.212439.5748@pegasus.com> richard@pegasus.com (Richard Foulk) writes: >>The Digitalker chip is _old_! That thing was obsoleted several years ago. >>But if your project is a low-quantity deal, it may be OK. The Digitalker >>chip produces audio with a low S/N ratio; the filter circuit given in their >>data sheet isn't very effective. >So what's more modern? (And hopefully affordable.) I have used two different chips, both of which are phoneme-based: - the SC-01, which is very simple, has little possibility for variations, but ... You can interface it easily to a centronics port and (a tiny little bit less easy) to an RS232 port. Fun to play and experiment with. Not very expensive. No idea if it's still sold anywhere. - the SSI263, which has a bus-interface, so You'll need a processor to drive it. Features "5 8-bit internal registers, 8 rates of articulation, 16 amplitude levels, 256 phonemes equivalents, 4096 pitch variations, 4 handshaking modes, 16 speed settings, 255 settings of vocal-tract frequency responses". With all these features You can even have it sing! Check Your back-issues of BYTE (go back a long time when they still catered for the hobbyist and home-brewer and before they changed into a glossy PC-Magazine). Steve Ciarcia hat articles on both of them in short succession (one article on the SC-01 and two months later one on the SSI263). Micromint used to sell these chips and kits using them. -- ======= | Josef Moellers | c/o Siemens Nixdorf Informatonssysteme AG | | USA: mollers.pad@nixdorf.com | Abt. PXD-S14 | | !USA: mollers.pad@nixdorf.de | Heinz-Nixdorf-Ring |