Alpha VS 100 - Page 9

—••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
7
of 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