Newsgroups: comp.robotics
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From: fredm@media.mit.edu (Fred G Martin)
Subject: Re: speech synthesis
Message-ID: <1994Apr30.130415.10240@news.media.mit.edu>
Sender: news@news.media.mit.edu (USENET News System)
Organization: MIT Media Laboratory
References: <2prtaa$bof@disc.coactive.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 1994 13:04:15 GMT
Lines: 36

In article <2prtaa$bof@disc.coactive.com> dan@coactive.com (dan
hennage) writes: 

>anyone have a good source for off-the-shelf speech synthesis?  either  
>letter-to-sound or user-defined fixed vocabulary would do.  i have an
>old post by alan kilian mentioning a $150 product from "RC Systems",
>but there was no details or phone number given.

RC Systems, Inc. makes a low-cost ASCII to voice board that provides
far better performance than the now-discontinued General Instrument
speech chip set many are familiar with.  The RC Systems product is a
small board with a CPU and a custom English text to phoneme converter.
It accepts TTL level serial as input and includes an LM386 power
op-amp so you just hook a speaker to the board and it's ready to talk.
The board has a socket for an NV-RAM chip to serve as an exception
dictionary.  It also can generate DTMF codes and other musical
outputs.  

All in all, it's a pretty awesome little board for US$150.  I don't
know of anything else like it on the market.

    RC Systems, Inc.
    1609 England Avenue
    Everett, WA 98203  USA
    phone: 206 355-3800
    fax:       355-1098
    
    UK/Europe dealer:  +4481 539 0285

Standard disclaimer applies:  I have no affiliation with RC Systems
other than having tried and liked their product.

	-Fred

Fred Martin | fredm@media.mit.edu | (617) 253-5108 | 20 Ames St. Rm. E15-320
Epistemology and Learning Group, MIT Media Lab     | Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
