Rubywand wrote in message news:<4067515D.18EDF39A@swbell.net>... > Ben Yates writes ... > > > > Wayne Stewart wrote in message news:<88a9c.24339$Ct5.4993@edtnps89>... > > > Exegete wrote: > > > > > > > I'm looking at an Echo+. > > > > I have two other Echo cards, I just assumed they were all the same. > > > > > > Here's a pic of the Echo II and IIb to compare your Echo+ with, Roy > > > http://www3.telus.net/waynes/echo2.jpg > > > http://www3.telus.net/waynes/echo2b.jpg > > > > > > > Tell us more about the software for it? What capabilities do you have? > > > > Text-to-speech? > > Built-in Speech words? (How Many)? > > Can you access text-to-speech from other languages (assembly)? > > Can you directly send LPC strings to the speech chip? (I know this > > chip is capable of this...) > > Can you convert text-to-speech to LPC? > > > .... > > There is some info about Echo speech here: > ftp://ground.ecn.uiowa.edu/apple2/Faqs/R012echo.txt . > > For Echo software, see the file EchoCollection.zip on GSWV at > http://apple2.org.za/gswv/a2zine/Utils/ . > > > > Rubywand Thanks, I read the first faq. They really limit the phonemes. The TI has 127 "allophones" [a further break-down of phonemes into smaller units] to choose from, and a few "pause" codes. It also has 64 pitches and a contouring factor or "slope" (to produce natural speech). Plus it has built-in vocabulary words (about 300). And the way words are created on the Echo seems to be a hassle. On a TI, a simple PRINT #1:"HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?" in TI Basic will say that phrase (if TE-II is plugged in). And using "Input" from a file opened to "ALPHON" will return the "allophone" string. Or, in XB with Text-to-speech disk: CALL LINK("XLAT","HELLO, HOW ARE YOU",A$) ! converts speech to "allophones" CALL LINK("SPEAK",A$,A,B) ! Says phrase. A is pitch, B is slope Or, in XB CALL SAY("HELLO, HOW ARE YOU") will say it using the built-in words. I wonder why no one has ever tried to interface a TI speech synthesizer to any other type of system. I have other systems and if I had time I'd love to try it. But still someone would have to write a good text-to-speech system to go beyond the built-in words. Ben Ben Yates wrote: >Thanks, I read the first faq. They really limit the phonemes. The TI >has 127 "allophones" [a further break-down of phonemes into smaller >units] to choose from, and a few "pause" codes. It also has 64 >pitches and a contouring factor or "slope" (to produce natural >speech). Plus it has built-in vocabulary words (about 300). > > >And the way words are created on the Echo seems to be a hassle. >On a TI, a simple PRINT #1:"HELLO, HOW ARE YOU?" in TI Basic will say >that phrase (if TE-II is plugged in). And using "Input" from a file >opened to "ALPHON" will return the "allophone" string. >Or, in XB with Text-to-speech disk: >CALL LINK("XLAT","HELLO, HOW ARE YOU",A$) ! converts speech to >"allophones" >CALL LINK("SPEAK",A$,A,B) ! Says phrase. A is pitch, B is slope > >Or, in XB CALL SAY("HELLO, HOW ARE YOU") will say it using the >built-in words. > >I wonder why no one has ever tried to interface a TI speech >synthesizer to any other type of system. I have other systems and if I >had time I'd love to try it. >But still someone would have to write a good text-to-speech system to >go beyond the built-in words. The Echo _is_ a TI speech synthesizer interfaced to an Apple II, so I'm not sure what you're getting at here. The ability to capture the allophone or LPC streams corresponding to a given text-to-speech translation is a property of the software, not the hardware. The only thing the hardware _ever_ sees is the stream of LPC coefficients (or, possibly, 8-bit digitized sound samples when in that mode). There are a number of text-to-speech programs that run on the Apple II, most of which use slight variants of the Naval Postgraduate School algorithm. Most generate phoneme codes to control phoneme synthesizers, but a couple generate sound sample streams to send to a hardware or software DAC. The one distributed with the Echo card is the only one I'm familiar with that generates LPC streams for phonemes. I don't recall if _any_ of these text-to-speech algorithms provide an interface to capture the phoneme/allophone/sample/LPC stream that they generate to control the synthesizer/DAC. That would not be a very difficult hack, but my guess is that very few saw it as particularly useful, since text-to-speech is relatively compact, runs very fast, and has unlimited vocabulary. Why, exactly, do you want to capture the stream rather than simply regenerate it as needed? -michael Check out amazing quality sound for 8-bit Apples on my Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/ The company that sold them and sells the IBM equivalent is in California. I made some phone calls to them about three years ago. The manual states that there are three ways that the Echo can produce humans speech: a robotic male voice with unlimited vocabulary, a high-quality female voice with a 4000 word vocabulary, and a third way. I was interested in learning more about the 3rd option, or how to make my own high quality compressed speech (to have Fred Flintstone say, "Yaba-daba-do!" on my Apple II, for example). The president and v.p. of the company are still there, but everyone else is a newbie, Apple II-wise. In the end, they couldn't find the docs, so it was a dead end. The Echo II cards are one of the few cards that operates in slot 3. It's capabililites are duplicated, and the mfg. says surpased, on the DoubleTalk card and the SlotBuster card, but I've not noticed any difference. The //c version was originally called "The Cricket." Favorite programs to use with the Echo: Tutor-Tech AppleWorks Comic Creator JaY Jay wrote: >The company that sold them and sells the IBM equivalent is in California. I >made some phone calls to them about three years ago. The manual states that >there are three ways that the Echo can produce humans speech: a robotic male >voice with unlimited vocabulary, a high-quality female voice with a 4000 word >vocabulary, and a third way. I was interested in learning more about the 3rd >option, or how to make my own high quality compressed speech (to have Fred >Flintstone say, "Yaba-daba-do!" on my Apple II, for example). The president >and v.p. of the company are still there, but everyone else is a newbie, Apple >II-wise. In the end, they couldn't find the docs, so it was a dead end. I contacted them in the early 90's, and had a little bit more luck. The "third way" was to send 8-bit digitized sound samples to the card and just use it as a D/A converter. The sample stream mode ended when a $00 byte was sent, as I recall. I tried the method, but it didn't work on my Echo card. I suspect the problem may have been with the version of the card, but don't know for sure. It is possible to send LPC coefficients to the card, since that's how it makes the phoneme-synthesis sounds (the unlimited vocabulary "male" voice) and the pre-computed female voice. I'm not aware of any tools they ever provided to create the tables of LPC coefficients that make up the female voice vocabulary tables or the male voice phoneme tables. -michael Check out amazing quality sound for 8-bit Apples on my Home page: http://members.aol.com/MJMahon/ I haven't found the tools, only hints that something was out there. There are programs that utilize the Echo card, but use a different prerecorded MALE voice, and then there's Comic Creator, which let's the user change how the voice sounds, as well as substitute new words for old ones. JaY << > I'm not aware of any tools they ever provided to create the > tables of LPC coefficients that make up the female voice > vocabulary tables or the male voice phoneme tables.> And if you _do_ find a tool to create LPC code, please let me know. I've searched long for it. In the meantime, I can use my TI Text-to-Speech disk along with software to capture the LPC strings to create new words. This isn't the same as digitally sampling a voice and converting, but it is the best I can do... >>