[gui-talk] identifying a speech synthesizer
Steve Jacobson
steve.jacobson at visi.com
Thu Sep 4 16:14:32 UTC 2014
Mike,
Here is what puzzles me about both of these recordings. I should probably say that I owned, over a long period of
time, an Echo, a Votrax Personal Speech system, a Sounding Board, a Type 'n' Talk which is different than a Type
'n[' Speak, and a Braille 'n' Speak. Gosh, I am shuttering at what I have spent over the years when I see this.
What is odd is that the Echo synthesizer tended to inflect with detectable separate pitches. It sometimes sounded
a little like what autotune does now. I hear some of that in these recordings as well, but the tone quality does
not sound like an echo. Who knows, though, what was used for text-to-speech in these demonstrations. The ability
to shift the voice envelop and the pitch independently on the SSI263 means it can sound quite a bit different with
different settings, even with the same TTS algorithm. Therefore, I would lean toward the conclusion that this is
probably an SSI263 or possibly Votrax chip with a text-to-speech algorithm that was not commonly in use in the
technologies that we used. However, it is all guesswork, so I would not bet a huge amount on any conclusion if I
were you. <smile>
Best regards,
Steve Jacobson
On Wed, 03 Sep 2014 15:16:20 -0400, Mike Arrigo via gui-talk wrote:
>I don't know if this will help, here is another clip, I guess you could
>change the pitch and tone of the voice, because this demo sounds a bit
>different.
>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eI3oQVK7iA
>Original message:
>> I used a PSS once but it didn't sound at all like this to me. I always
>> said the PSS sounded both bored and permanently smiling at the same
>> time, but it sounded less mechanical than this example.
>> On Wed, Sep 03, 2014 at 10:46:09AM -0500, Steve Jacobson via gui-talk wrote:
>> Lloyd,
>> Didn't some of the old Votrax synthesizers use another chip? I'm
>> thinking of the old Votrax Personal Speech
>> System which I used for a while in the 1980's. This reminded me of
>> that synthesizer. I remember that Votrax did
>> have a board that used the SSI263 chip as well.
>> Best regards,
>> Steve Jacobson
>> On Wed, 3 Sep 2014 10:17:13 -0400, Rasmussen, Lloyd via gui-talk wrote:
>>> This does not sound like an Echo synthesizer at all. I expect it is
>>> some kind of Votrax synthesizer that
>> predates the SSI263.
>>> Lloyd Rasmussen, Senior Staff Engineer
>>> National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped
>>> Library of Congress 202-707-0535
>>> http://www.loc.gov/nls
>>> The preceding opinions are my own, and do not necessarily reflect those
>>> of the Library of Congress, NLS.
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: gui-talk [mailto:gui-talk-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Mike
>>> Arrigo via gui-talk
>>> Sent: Wednesday, September 03, 2014 9:56 AM
>>> To: gui-talk at nfbnet.org
>>> Subject: [gui-talk] identifying a speech synthesizer
>>> Hey everyone, saw this youtube video of the hro robot from the 1980's.
>>> I would have loved to have had one of these, I think only 1000 were
>>> made, and for their time, they did quite a bit. Does anyone know what
>>> speech chip this is, I'm guessing it was either the echo or the ssi263
>>> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b8dUL9qgU1M
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