New Text to Speech IC

erco

Senior Member
Just added a talking calculator feature to my 20M2 talking keyboard. Uploading video now.

 

geoff07

Senior Member
Hmm. Good fun but don't give up the day job! I guess there is a reason why this audio technology has not advanced in 20 years whilst the robot bit has massively improved.

Given the size and price of eeproms these days why don't 'they' make more use of the midi/satnav approach of recording segments of actual speech and outputing them? My favourite (used by one of my PCs when it shuts down) is HAL from 2001. "Dave, my mind is going .." There is a lot of good material out there that can be used. But I suspect it is going to take a lot more than a microcontroller to handle it all.
 

sbscott

Senior Member
The SP0512 looks like a great application for my little bot. I have a question though, it looks like the only connection necessary for the 18m2 I am using is a tx pin from the PICAXE to the 512. Is there any connection needed for the TX pin (4) on the 512?
 

westaust55

Moderator
Adafruit are selling a new(ish) text to speech module. The "Emic 2 Text-to-Speech module "
http://www.adafruit.com/products/924

Not the cheapest option at around US$60 and in listening to the audio samples on the Adafruit website it is still rather "mechanical" akin to chips from 20 years ago.
The actual text to speech algorithms may have improved in that time to reduce wrong pronunciation of words.
 

Buzby

Senior Member
Haha !. Many years ago, when I was a youngster just starting out with TTL, I built an ultrasonic remote control.
I had no idea how to build a keyboard, so I used a telephone dial.

The case was a Tupperware pot, with the dial on the top and the ultrasonic transducer on the bottom.
To use the device, you pointed the pot at the receiver and dialled the channel.
This caused pulses to go to counters, gates, monostables, etc., and an oscillator for the ultrasound.

The receiver was full of the similar circuitry, all TTL on Veroboard, stuffed in a shoebox, and the end result was to toggle one of ten relays.

It worked a treat, but my Dad wouldn't let me wire it into the telly, probably because it belonged to Radio Rentals !.
 

erco

Senior Member
FINAL BUY OPPORTUNITY!

Drats. My compadre Ken at Speechchips, who makes the IMO fabulous $17 RoboVoice chip, is calling it quits. He's out of stock and about to shut down the Speechchips.com website. He's been the Keeper of the Flame for many years in supplying old speech chips like the SP0256 and related parts. I'm sad to hear he's transitioning into writing apps.

I'm hoping he might consider making a final batch if there's enough demand. You can read the details within this thread, but in a nutshell:

Ken created the Robovoice chip as a modern replacement for the 1980's-vintage SP0256 chip plus its companion TTS chip. No crystal required, easy to build. Same robotic sound quality as the 1980's chips. Compared to Emic2, lower sound quality and lower price. Still big fun to doodle around with and have speech on your bot.

For US buyers only, I'm considering doing a bulk buy from Ken to make it easier on him, he kinda wants to be done with it and hasn't agreed to make any more yet. Either way, assume shipped chips are about $20 each (probably combined ship OK). If you want one (or several), reply fast, he's in a plug-yanking kinda mood.
 

Steve2381

Senior Member
'Greetings Dr Falken, how about a game of Global Thermonuclear War?'

Just found some of these in the workshop... Mmm. Now what do I have that needs a slurring robot function?
 
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