Watford Electronics Speech Synthesiser
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ACCESS TO THE SOFTWARE
======================
Commands:
        *TALK [word/allophone],[word/allophone],[word], . . .
        *FX 25, [word number] , [library number]
        SOUND 8192, [word number] , [library number]
        OSWORD 25
        OSBYTE 25

*TALK COMMAND
-------------
Each allophone or library word has a spelling convention and associated
number as shown in appendixes 1 and 2.

If a word is in the library then the simplest way to speak it is with the
command:

*TALK [word],[word],. . .

eg. *TALK I AM A COMPUTER

This can be issued in any language which passes '*' commands to the
operating system line interpreter.

It can also be used to construct words from allophones and to mix your own
words with library words. For instance to speak ' THE NAME IS DAVID ' use :

*TALK THE NAME IS DD2 EY PA1 VV IH DD1

Inflexion can be used by typing a '+' or '-' after an allophone eg. DD2-,
EY+ would speak a low DD2 and a high EY.

If the word or allophone is unrecognized then control is passed through a
vector at &230. The two bytes at addresses &B4 (low) and &B5 (high) make up
the address of a table in RAM. The table is in the format shown below in the
section on OSWORD. The user can therefore write a routine to deal with extra
words and place its start address at &230.

If you wish to fabricate a *TALK command with a parameter string then you
may of course use OSCLI to send the command. It is more elegant to use
OSWORD 25, but easier to use: OSCLI("*TALK "+A$) - This will only work for
issue 2 Basic, for issue 1 you must fabricate an OSCLI equivalent so it is
probably easier to call OSWORD 25.

*FX25 and OSBYTE
----------------
The format is *FX25,X,Y.

If Y=0 then X is an allophone number (see appendix 1). This allophone number
may have 128 added to lower the pitch or 64 added to increase the pitch. X
can also contain a continuation pause code in the range &C0 to &CA, or a
synchronization code (&FE). (see appendix 1 )

If Y=1 or 2 or 3 then X is the number of a word in the Yth dictionary.

If Y>3 then the instruction is ignored by the Watford speech software but
will be passed round all the sideways ROMS in case any of them wish to
respond. This means you could add your own ROM dictionaries by looking for
an unwanted *FX25, trapping it, interpreting it and passing the correct
allophone data back to the Watford software via FX25,X,0.

SOUND 8192,X,Y,0 - OSWORD 7
---------------------------
This command can be used from BASIC. However from BASIC it is the most
adaptable of the possible commands. *TALK and *FX cannot easily be used with
BASIC variables but this command can. X and Y obey the same rules as shown
under the *FX section above.

OSWORD 25
---------
This enables machine code users to pass library words in ASCII to the speech
software. X (low) and Y (high) point to a table in the format shown.

XY+0    LSB     -- Address
XY+l             !    of
XY+2             !   data
XY+3    MSB     --

XY+4               Flag

XY+5    LSB     -! Length of
XY+6    MSB     -!   data

If FLAG=0 then the address in the table indicates the start of a second
table containing values for X and Y registers to be used in a series of
*FX25 commands. The value in the length of data positions indicates the
number of *FX25 commands to be carried out and hence that number of values
for each of X and Y should be placed in your table.

In your table the order is Xl,Yl,X2,Y2,X3,Y3,. . . .,Xn,Yn.
This will then have the effect of issuing

        *FX Xl,Yl
        *FX X2,Y2
        *FX X3,Y2
         . . . .
        *FX Xn,Yn

after a single JSR OSWORD.

If FLAG=80 then the address points to the ASCII of a word or allophone ( or
series of them ) which is ended by a CR or 00. The sentence will then be
spoken as with the *TALK command.

If FLAG=C0 then the address points to the ASCII of a word or allophone ( or
series of them ) which is of length contained in XY+5 and XY+6.

For calls &80, &C0 the bit of value 8 selects ignore unrecognised word mode.
If, say, &80 is used, unrecognised words will be spelled out letter by
letter, if &88 were used instead nothing would be spoken for an unknown
word.

If a word is unrecognized then control is passed through a vector at &230.

MEMORY LOCATIONS USED
---------------------
A8-AF   *TALK
B0-B2   OSBYTE
B3-B9   OSWORD
BA-BF   For use during unrecognised words
100     OSBYTE

In detail for OSWORD
B3-B4   Line pointer
B5      Type
B6-B7   Line length
B8-B9   Word length
BA-BB   Library pointer
BC      Temporary line letter
BD      Temporary word letter