tedk@ihuxv.ATT.COM (Kekatos) (02/18/88)
Review and Information on B.G Micro Text to Speech Board.
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COMPUTALKER SPEECH SYNTHESIZER
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from B.G. MICRO (214) 271-5546 (Dallas TX)
I purchased the B.G. MICRO Computalker board for $89.95.
I have it set-up in a "stand alone" type operation. I have
it proped-up between books on my book shelf. I built my
own +5,+12,-12 power supply that doubles as a book-end.
I use a "ribbon" modem cable to connect it to one
of several different computers.
This Board uses the General Instruments SPO256-AL2 and CTS256-AL2
chip set. I think that these are the same chips that Radio Shack
sells. These chips have been mentioned in several books on
voice synthesis.
The board uses one slot (for power only) and requires
one serial com port connection. The board can except ASCII TEXT
from any computer (or terminal) with RS-232 port. There is a
1700 byte input buffer with hardware handshake signals. The board
is shipped with a (PC) Demonstration Disk, documentation,
and Schematics. The board has a speaker and a RCA type phone
jack for external speakers.
The serial port on the board can be set to one of seven baud rates
up to 9600 baud. The Computalker begins speaking the TEXT after
it receives a CR (0x0d) character.
The TEXT to SPEECH program within the Computalker is limited
but "Okay". It has trouble with numerical speech. Everything
must be spelled out. Such as "$104" must be sent to the
Computalker as "1 hundred and 4 dollars".
The voice quality is good compared to most voice synthesizers.
It sounds a bit "nasal", and take some time to get use to.
It is best if there are spaces between words and
difficult to understand words are spelled "phonetically".
This take some experimenting.
I have material on phonetic speech with PHONEMES and material
on using/constructing ALLOPHONE speech with the
SPO256-AL2, but I haven't found a way to by-pass the
text to speech conversion program.
Ted G. Kekatos
backbone!ihnp4!ihuxv!tedk (312) 979-0804
AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill South, IX-1F-460
Naperville & Wheaton Roads - Naperville, Illinois. 60566 USAtedk@ihuxv.ATT.COM (Kekatos) (02/19/88)
In article <2459@ihuxv.ATT.COM> tedk@ihuxv.ATT.COM (Kekatos) writes: >Review and Information on B.G Micro Text to Speech Board. >------ --- ----------- -- --------- ---- -- ------ ------ > COMPUTALKER SPEECH SYNTHESIZER > ----------- ------ ----------- >from B.G. MICRO (214) 271-5546 (Dallas TX) > >I purchased the B.G. MICRO Computalker board for $89.95. The Computalker is now priced at $69.95 Ted G. Kekatos backbone!ihnp4!ihuxv!tedk (312) 979-0804 AT&T Bell Laboratories, Indian Hill South, IX-1F-460 Naperville & Wheaton Roads - Naperville, Illinois. 60566 USA