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From: knt@cbterra.ATT.COM (Kirk Trost)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics,comp.lsi
Subject: Re: Question about speech Synthesisor
Message-ID: <3862@cbterra.ATT.COM>
Date: 14 Apr 88 12:56:08 GMT
References: <732@sun.soe.clarkson.edu>
Reply-To: knt@cbterra.UUCP (Kirk Trost)
Organization: AT&T Medical Information Systems, Columbus
Lines: 36


Brad Clements had asked some questions about the Radio Shack speech
synthesizer and text-to-speech converter.

First of all, the speech synthesizer does not require that a 3.12 Mhz
crystal be used -- as long as the crystal is pretty close to that value,
the synthesizer should work the same, only that the pitch of the 
resulting voice will be different.  I have used the speech synthesizer
with the commonly available (I believe Radio Shack still sells them)
3.58 Mhz colorburst crystal.  The pitch of the voice is higher than with
the 3.12 Mhz, but the quality is about the same.

Speaking of quality, the output of the speech synthesizer is not bad
but does lack somewhat is understandability.  If you know what the chip
is supposed to say, you can understand it pretty well, but to a person
that does not know what it is trying to say, a bit of confusion often 
results.

Nevertheless, the chip is extremely fun to play with and interfaces rather
easily to a microprocessor.  I know Brad said he is not well versed in
microprocessors, but I feel this is the best way to use the chip.  
Originally, I used just some static RAM and an address counter to make the
chip talk, but this method did not have the versatility that can be
obtained through using a microprocessor.

I have not used the text-to-speech converter and thus can not comment
on how well it works.  I have looked over the specifications on using the
converter in Radio Shack's Semiconductor Reference Manual, but don't
have the application to use it at this time.

Have fun and good luck!

**************************************************************************
Kirk Trost	AT & T  Bell Laboratories, Columbus, Ohio
cbosgd!knt
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