Alpha VS 100 - Features

3.
Features
The VS-100
is
capable
of
producing
unlimited
vocabulary
speech.
Words
are
created
by
combining
basic
sounds,
such
as
M
s" or
M
th"
.
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 a
strictly
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
a
more
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
a 48K
system
or
five
hours
on
a
double
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".
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