ZVOICE Part 2

Listing 4 shows how a text to speech program can be implemented.

A text string is scanned one word at a time, with “spaces” as separators. If the word is in the vocabulary, then the word is spoken; if not found, phonetic pronunciation of the word, or the phrase “WORD UNKNOWN” is spoken.

New words are easily added by defining them as NUMERIC VARIABLES which are then used as an INDEX into the VOCABULARY.

B$=PHONEME DATA FOR "ZVOICE" 
B=LEN B$
B$(B)=CHRS(CODE B$(B)+128)
$S(END TO END+B)=B$
ZVOICE=END
END=END+B
RETURN

A$ is a one dimension array which contains the vocabulary in phoneme format.

B$ is a new string of phonemes to be added to the vocabulary with the last phoneme identified by adding 128 (set BIT 7).

In this example the text word “ZXVOICE” becomes the name of a numeric variable which is set to END, the pointer to the. end of the vocabulary.

END is updated by adding the length of the new word in B$ to END.

The advantage of this method is natural sounding speech from text, the disadvantage is memory overhead for the vocabulary.

The concept of a new phoneme editor is described here which uses cursors or a joystick to take the tedium out of composing phonetic words.

This method would arrange the phonemes and common sound element combinations in a matrix or logical array on the screen.

The cursor movement would select an element which is provisionally added to the end of a phoneme string and is tested by voicing the whole string including the new element.

If it sounds good, it is added to the string, by pushing N/L (ENTER), and then the next element is selected and tested.

Words are built up and when complete are added to the vocabulary.

Again the text word can be used as the numeric variable index so that the new phoneme string starts at A$(TEXT).

In this way any word can be accessed and spoken with the simple BASIC routine:

RAND TEXT
RAND USR 16514

These routines are just scratching the surface of a comprehensive speech synthesis package.

Next time we connect ZVOICE to the telephone, add some AI and start a French/English dictionary.

BUFF	JR BUFF1;		LOAD SP0256 DATA
INIT	JR INIT1;		INIT 8255 IF ANY
LADR	JR LADR1;		FIND LINE ADDR.
BUFF1	LD HL,(+16400); 	TOP OF VAR
	LD DE,05;		SKIP VAR HEADER
	ADD HL,DE;		NOTE BUFF2 INC
	LD DE,(+16434);		ADD OFFSET
	ADD HL,DE;		IN SEED POINTER
BUFF2	INC HL;			NEXT DATA
SBY1	IN A,27;		TEST BIT 7 BUSY
	BIT 7,A;		BEFORE DATA LOAD
	JR Z SBY1;		REPEAT IF BUSY
DATA	LD A,(HL);		GET BUFF DATA
	OUT 17,A;		LOAD SP0256 DATA
STRB	XOR A;			A=0
	OUT 27,A;		STROBE LOW
	CPL;			A=FF
	OUT 27,A;		STROBE HIGH
LAST	LD A,(HL);		GET BUFF DATA
	BIT 7,A;		WAS IT LAST DATA?
	JR Z BUFF2;		IF BIT 7=0 LOOP
	RET;			BYE...
INIT1	LD A,98;		PORT A,C(4-7) = IN
	OUT 37,A;		PORT B,C(0-3) = OUT
	LD A,0F;		DEFAULT DATA=00
	OUT 27,A;		STROBE HIGH
	RET;			BYE
LADR1	LD HL,(+16434);		LINE NUMBER
	CALL 9D8;		IN SEED CONVERTS
	LD DE,5;		TO ADDR OF LINE
	ADD HL,DE;		SKIP HEADER AND
	LD B,H;			KEY WORD AND PASS
	LD C,L;			ADDR IN REG BC
	RET;			BACK TO BASIC

1 REM
3 DIM A$(256)
4 GOSUB 1000
5 LET HELLO=END
6 DIM V$(16)
7 LET END=END+LEN B$
10 REM PHONEMES ARE ASSEMBLED IN B$ AND WHEN COMPLETED WORDS ARE ADDED TO VOCABULARY A$
15 CLS
20 PRINT "PHONEME VOCABULARY LENGTH=";END
30 PRINT
40 PRINT "INPUT PHONEMES 0 TO 63"
50 PRINT """Q"" COMPLETES PHRASE"
60 PRINT """VOC"" = EXIT TO VOCABULARY"
110 LET B$=""
120 INPUT A
125 IF A=VOC THEN GOTO 310
130 LET B$=B$+CHR$ A
140 PRINT A;",";
150 IF A<>Q THEN GOTO 310
199 REM TEXTINPUT/B$ TO BUFFER
200 PRINT AT 19,0;"ENTER TEXT WORD(S)"
210 INPUT T$
215 PRINT T$
217 LET A$(END TO END+LEN B$)=B$
220 RAND END
230 RAND USR 16516
235 PRINT AT 19,0;"PRESS ""R"" TO REPEAT,""C"" TO CANCEL, N/L TO CONTINUE"
240 INPUT C$
250 IF C$="R" THEN GOTO 220
260 IF C$="C" THEN GOTO 10
270 LET V$(17-LEN T$ TO )=T$
280 FOR N=1 TO 16
290 POKE 16586+N,CODE V$(N)
295 NEXT N
300 GOTO 5
310 CLS
320 PRINT "ENTER WORD TO BE VOICED","NONEXISTING OR MISSPELLED WORDS RESULT IN ERROR 2/360","GOTO VOC OR PHON TO RECOVER"
330 INPUT C$
340 IF C$="PHON" THEN GOTO PHON
350 PRINT AT 0,0;C$
360 RAND VAL C$
370 RAND USR 16516
380 GOTO 310
1000 LET END=1
1010 LET Q=128
1020 LET VOC=9998
1030 LET PHON=9999
1060 LET B$=""
2000 RETURN
9998 GOTO 310
9999 GOTO 5