Alpha VS 100 User manual

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USER MANUAL
ALPHA [Pcrmlhm&s
79-04 Jamaica Ave., Woodhaven, NY 11421

Alpha Products
VS-100 Voice Synthesizer
User Manual
Table of contents
1. Try out your VS-100 without reading the manual. ..2
2
.
Introduction 5
3
.
Features •6
4
.
How does it work? 7
5. Detailed installation •9
6
.
Text to speech hints ..15
7. Adding speech to your programs. 17
8. Pitch control 26
9. Machine language programming. 2d
10. Future releases. 29
11. Troubleshooting guide ....30
12
.
Customer support 31
13. Phoneme list •32
14. Applications ,•.34
15
.
Warranty 35
16
.
Contest Rules 36
17. Trademarks and other credits 38
IS. Bibliography 39
COPYRIGHT 1983
JtoALPHA [phone]
Page 1

1-Try out your VS-1 00 without
reading the manual
We know that you would like to hear your VS-100 right
away. If you have atwo disk system, here are three quick
steps to get speech: (If you have atape or single drive
system, please refer to the detailed instructions) .
Step 1:Transferring the programs to your disk
Step 2:Connecting the hardware
Step 3:Running the demonstration software
If you have any problems with the quick shortcut
instructions described below, refer to the "Detailed
instal la tion" chapter
.
IDPSTEP lj :Transferring the disk files.
Do NOT plug the VS-100 in yet!
First we must transfer the files from your VS-100 master
disk to your own disk. The software is supplied on an 18
track Model Idata diskette. Your DOS will read this disk
just as easily as a35 track diskette. Tracks 18 and up
are locked out
.
&*> Model III users must use the CONVERT utility. (Please
refer to your DOS manual if you are not familiar with this
utility)
.
®o Model Tusers with two or more drives: insert the
VS-100 master disk in drive 1then use the COPY command
(Example COPY VS48/CMD:i TO VS48/CMD:0) for each file.
The files that you are going to transfer are:
•VS48/CMD -- Text to speech for 48K computers
•VS32/CMD -- Text to speech for 32K computers
•VSEDIT/BAS -- Phoneme editor
•VSDEMO/BAS -- Introduction and test program
•PRTSTAR/TXT -- PRINT* pokes for aMERGE
•QUIET/CMD -- To silence the VS-100
When the six files are transferred to your system
Page 2

disk, remove your VS-100 master disk from drive 1and store
it safely.
fosTEP 2TI Installing the VS-100.
*» Turn the computer off
•Plug the speaker into the VS-100
—Plug the power pack into awall outlet or preferably
apower strip with the rest of your equipment.
-"•-Plug the power pack into the VS-100
—"Plug the VS-100 into your computer.
Bt> Model I:Plug it into left side of expansion
interface in the 40-pin bus located in front of
the parallel printer port. (Since this bus is
rarely used, please clean both sides of the carH
edge with apencil eraser) .If this port is
already used you will need an "X2 Expandabus"
cable.
5X> Model III :Plug it into the 50-pin bus located
underneath the computer in the middle towards the
back. Insert the small black plastic shaft into
the long lucite shaft. Peel off the adhesive on
the small bracket. Firmly, but gently, insert
the shaft assembly into the potentiometer on the
VS board .Hold the potentiometer while pushing
the shaft in. Press the bracket against the
bottom right side of the computer case.
•Power up your computer.
Some continuous tone might be heard. Type QUIET
from DOS READY. The VS-100 will also quiet when you
load VS48 or VS32
NOTE 1;The VS-100 must be powered at the same
time as, or before the computer. The computer
may lock up until the VS-100 is powered.
NOTE 2: At power up, the VS-100 may produce some
sound (continuous tone). Turn the volume control
Page 3

down or from DOS type QUIET <enter> to execute
GUIET/CMD. You may also load BASIC and execute
the command OUT 11,3:
Model I: type OUT 11,3 then press the ENTER key.
Model III: type OUT 236,16 :OUT 11,3 then press
the ENTER key. (The OUT 236,16 is needed to
enable the I/O bus)
.
•NOTE 3: If you turn the computer off and leave
the VS-100 on, you might hear acontinuous tone.
Just unplug the VS-100 power pack. If possible,
try to power the VS-100 and the computer from the
same master switch
.
IQSTEP 3:) Loading and running the demonstration software*
—Under DOS, type VS48 for a48K system or type VS32
for a32K system. This is the text to speech driver. It
loads in high memory and protects itself. NEWDOS+ ver. 2.1
users: you must set memory to 60666 for VS48 or 44277 for
VS32.
—Load BASIC (the memory size is already set), and from
the READY prompt type RUN"VSDEM0/BAS" .You should hear a
short introductory message. Menu option 1lets you type any
message you want and press the enter key to hear it. Press
the enter key again to hear the message again.
—Adjust the volume control to acomfortable level and
enjoy. To get an idea of the capabilities of the text to
speech algorithm, try the following sentence:
On March 3rd, Mrs McRuff bought 12.45 ozs. of #4
screws 849$ per lb. +&% tax, from J&KCo.
Or type: 12,345,678,901,234.56789
—To get the best results, read the section titled "Text
to speech hints"
.
By now, anyone in earshot wants to try.it too. It's
time to retreat and read the real manual which follows.
Page 4

THE REAL MANUAL
2. Introduction
We thank you for your purchase of the VS-100. We hope
that you will be pleased with its performance and
versatility
.
For the longest time, speech has been the most natural
means of communication between people. Although computer
speech synthesis has been in existence for several years,
it's only very recently that it has become affordable.
Alpha Products is proud of the achievement in price
and performance that the VS-100 represents. This is our
first attempt .The result is by no means final •The
VS-100 project is acontinuing one. Alot of time and
effort has been devoted to it, and every reasonable attempt
has been made to assure compatibility with the many
operating systems available. We know from past experience
that some of you will have difficulty anyway. If this is
the case, we will help you; refer to section titled
"Troubleshooting Guide"
«
Page 5

3. Features
The VS-100 is capable of producing unlimited
vocabulary speech. Words are created by combining basic
sounds, such as Ms" or Mth" .These sounds, called
"phonemes" can be combined in many ways to reproduce the
sounds in any word. Note, however, that the sixty four
phonemes in the Votrax chip were designed for the English
language
.
Some of the earlier synthesizer chips had astrictly
monotonic voice. The VS-100 has automatic inflection which
varies the tone of some sounds (phonemes) when they are
combined in different ways, resulting in amore natural
sounding voice.
In addition, you can also vary the base pitch of the
voice under software control. There are four pitch levels.
One of the major features of the VS-100 is its "low
data rate requirement". In plain English this means that,
compared to other methods of storing and digitizing speech,
the VS-100 is very efficient. It only uses about twelve
bytes of memory per second of speech, compared to several
thousand bytes for some other methods. This means that you
could store roughly an hour of continuous speech in memory
in a48K system or five hours on adouble density diskette.
Adding speech to your existing programs is very
simple. For instance, in IK, you could add forty messages
of about two seconds, (that's five to eight words each).
The VS-100 is easy to operate. You will see later how
your computer can say anything by simply typing
PRINT*"anything that you want".
Page 6

4. How does it work?
We will talk about "phonemes" ,but don't worry, as you
will see later, you don't have to know anything about them
to be able to use the full power of your VS-100. First,
let's see how the VS-100 works.
The hardware
•The heart of the hardware is the now famou3 Votrax
SC-C1 Phoneme Synthesizer. Aphoneme is one of the basic
sounds needed to create spoken English. Speech is
synthesj zed by combining the sixty four different phonemes
in the appropriate sequence.
—Each of the sixty four phonemes has astandard Votrax
shorthand notation. For example Al is the code for the
sound "A" in MADE. In addition to the shorthand notation,
edch phoneme has acode used by the computer (a number from
to 63). There is acomplete phoneme table later in this
manua 1.
—The computer sends the phoneme codes to the VS-100
using one c>f the 256 ports available. The VS-100 software
uses port 11, but the hardware will also respond to some
other port numbers.
•When the VS-100 receives the phoneme code, it creates
the proper audio waveform to reproduce the sound
corresponding to the phoneme. All the waveforms for the
sixty four phonemes are permanently stored in the Votrax
chip. The synthesizer output is then amplified and sent to
the speaker
.
—The computer communicates with the VS-100 through the
8bit data bus. The lower six bits <bits 0-5) are used to
select the phonemes. The higher two bits (bits 6&7)
control the pitch level
.
Page 7

—••As you can see in the phoneme list, the phonemes have
various durations. The computer must know when the VS-100
is ready to accept the next phoneme. This is done on the
Model III by the use of a"status bit". Bit 7of port 11
is low only when the VS-100 is busy talking. On the Model
I,the VS-100 generates "wait" states.
|The Software]
•The programs on your disk are the key to the
simplicity of the system. The text to speech software
translates English words and numbers into the proper
sequence of phonemes. This machine language program (about
5K long) implements over FOUR HUNDRED pronunciation rules.
These rules take each letter and its context and decide
which phonemes are needed.
*»• The text to be spoken is processed by the algorithm,
and the codes are sent to the VS-100, which speaks almost
immediately. Considering the complexity of English
pronunciation, we think that you will be suprised by the
performance of this translator.
Page 8

5. Detailed installation
ISTE^)i: Transferring the disk files.
•Do NOT plug the VS-100 in yett
First let's transfer the disk files from your VS-100 master
disk to your own disk. The software is supplied on an 18
track Model Idata diskette. (Higher tracks are locked out;
your DOS should have no trouble reading the diskette).
MODEL IUSERS WITH MORE THAN ONE DRIVE:
Use the BACKUP or COPY command to move the files from
the master disk to another disk.
MODEL IUSERS WITH ONE DRIVE:
If you have -
•NEWDOS: use COPY with the "S Moption or the CBF option
Ex: COPY SVSEDIT/BAS:0 TO VSEDIT/BAS:0
•DOSPLUS: use the C0PY1 utility
•LDOS: use COPY with the "X" option
•TRSDOS: we have included on our disk, some TRSDOS
system files- We don't include much of it, and
we do not provide any documentation for it. This
is our effort to protect Tandy Corp.'s copyright.
Our program TRANSFER/BAS is included, which allows
you to copy the files onto aworking TRSDOS disk.
To transfer your files, do the following:
1- Boot up with your TRSDOSdisk. Go into BASIC.
2- Remove the TRSDOS disk and insert the VS-100 disk.
3- Type: RUN"TRANSFER/BAS** and hit <enter>
.
4* Specify one of the files that you want to transfer
The file will be read from the disk into memory.
5- You will be told to swap disks. When you do, your
TRSDOS disk should be in your drive. Hit <enter>.
6-The file will be written to your TRSDOS disk.
7- You will be told to swap disks again. When done,
the VS-100 disk will be in the drive. Hit <enter>.
8- Repeat steps 4to 7for each file.
Page 9