Astra Blaster/Astra.cdr/voice/hearsay7.txt

Text File | 1992-04-07 | 17KB | 413 lines

          3f. FILES MENU - allows you to:

          - Change default drive or dorectory for Hearsay functions.
          - Load a dictionary you have created with the speech editor.
          - View all files or just the Hearsay files on a disk.

     Because Hearsay needs  to operate at the same time as  other DOS programs,
it can only access  files when DOS happens to be  in the right spot.  If DOS is
not ready to access the disk,  the Main Menu will show a  choice for F7, RETURN
WHEN DOS IS NOT BUSY.  If DOS is ready to access the disk, F7 will  not appear.

     The Files Menu  cannot be  accessed while the F7  prompt is displayed.  To
clear the DOS busy condition, select  F7 RETURN WHEN DOS IS NOT BUSY and answer
Y to the EXIT HEARSAY AND WAIT? question.  The Hearsay menus will disappear for
an instant,  then return  without the  F7 choice.  The Files  Menu can  then be
selected to display the directory or load a dictionary file.

          FILES MENU CHOICES

     F1 - CHANGE DRIVE

     This function key allows you to select  the disk drive you want to perform
     file operations on. You will be prompted to press the drive letter.

     F2 - CHANGE DIRECTORY

     By pressing  [F2],  you  can select  the  disk  directory to  perform file
     operations on.  You will  be  prompted  to type  in  the  directory's name
     followed by [ENTER].

NOTE: F3 and F4 are not active and will be used for future use.

     F5 - LOAD DICTIONARY FILE

     Pressing [F3]  allows you  to load  a dictionary  file you have previously
     created and saved. You will be prompted to enter a filename of up to eight
     characters,  with NO extension,  followed by [ENTER].  The dictionary file
     will be retrieved from the  previously selected directory  and disk drive.
     You must have the proper disk containing the  selected file in  the drive.

     F6 - LIST FILES IN DIRECTORY

     To view the directory  of a disk,  press [F4].  All filenames  on the disk
     will be displayed one screen at a time. Pressing [SPACE] will give you the
     next screen full of filenames Pressing [ESC] returns you to the Files Menu

     F7 - LIST HEARSAY FILES

     To see just Hearsay files on a disk,  press [F5].  Speech Dictionary files
     will have an extension  of ".SD2" and ".SD3"  for speech versions  2 and 3
     respectively.

          4. DICTIONARY AND DICTIONARY USAGE

     Hearsay's speech can  be customized  by creating an  exception dictionary.
When such a dictionary is loaded,  any word listed in it will  be pronounced as
it  is  defined  there  rather  than  by  Hearsay's  standard  rules. A Hearsay
dictionary is a list of words with customized phoneme  (Pronounced "foe-neems")
strings,  giving  each  a customized  pronounciation.  A  complete list  of all
phoemes used by Hearsay is given in Appendix D.

     Before you can create  a dictionary,  you need  some understanding  of the
process of  speech synthesis.  In the English  language the same  letter may be
pronounced in many different ways, and Hearsay uses  a complex set of  rules to
interpret written words into phonetic elements called phonemes,  which are then
spoken. While these rules are usually correct, there are many exceptions within
the language, and preferences among listeners. You may wish to change Hearsay's
pronounciation of certain words,  or expanded abbreviations (Mr. to Mister, for
instance).  If every  letter of  the alphabet  had only one sound,  then speech
synthesis would be simple.  We would just send each letter  to the Hearsay Gold
board and Hearsay would say that  letter's sound.  But because a  single letter
can have many  different sounds  (For instance,  the letter  "E" in 'set' has a
different sound than in 'seat') we  need to translate  each word into  a set of
sounds that create the correct pronounciation.  We string the phonemes together
and new pronounciations are created to  get the right sound.  Hearsay exception
dictionaries are created with the Hearsay speech editor program (SP-EDIT) which
is included on the Hearsay disk.

     When a dictionary is loaded,  (F3 in the Files Menu)  Hearsay  checks each
word to see if  it is listed  in the dictionary before  attempting to apply its
pronounciation rules. If  the word is listed,  the dictionary pronounciation is
used.

          4A. USING THE SPEECH EDITOR

     The SP-EDIT program is used to create or modify a Hearsay dictionary.

NOTE: The dictionary program (SP-EDIT) must be run  seperately from the Hearsay
      program. You must  unhook Hearsay  or reboot the  computer before running
      the dictionary,  and reboot  it again  afterward before  running Hearsay.
      Otherwise, the programs will interfere with each other.

          4B. TO CREATE OR MODIFY A DICTIONARY

     1. Unhook Hearsay or  reboot the computer  to be sure Hearsay is unloaded.

     2. Then run the SPEECHV2 or SPEECHV3 program.

     3. When DOS returns, run SP-EDIT and indicate  (When prompted) whether you
        are running Version 2 or Version 3.

     4. When you are asked for port assignments of the Hearsay  board enter 34,
        or  whatever  your  Hearsay  port  switches  are  set  to (See Hardware
        Installation - BOOK I).

     5. The Speech Editor menu will then be displayed.

     The Speech Editor menu has three windows,  two on the right and one on the
bottom, and a list of commands on  the left side. The window at the upper right
is the WORD window, where you will enter  the text to be converted to phonemes.
The middle window is the PHONEME window where you can edit the  phoneme string.
The bottom window is the STATUS window,  for informational and error  messages.

     The Hearsay  Speech Editor  Menu is  controlled by  the function keys,  as
described below. A sample  dictionary building session is given  in Appendix C.

     F1 - CREATE / EDIT WORDS

     Press [F1] to bring the cursor to the WORD window.  Type the word you want
     edit the pronouciation of.

     F2 - CONVERT WORD TO PHONETICS

     Press  [F2]  to  convert  the  word  in  the  top  window  to  a  phonetic
     representation of that  word in the second  window. This will show you how
     the word is presently being pronounced.

     F3 - CREATE / EDIT PHONETICS

     Press  [F3]  to  edit  the phonetics  listed  for  your word.  The  editor
     functions in  INSERT mode  -  instead  of  writing  over letters,  use the
     [BACKSPACE] or  [DELETE]  key to  delete them.  Phonetic elements  must be
     written exactly as they appear in Appendix D (Or when listed on the screen
     when selecting [F10] help). Upper / lower case  differences are important.

     F4 - HEAR PHONETICS

     At any  time in the  phonetic editing process  you can press  [F4] to hear
     the word spoken.  If you  have any  "illegal" phonetics,  you will  get an
     error message in the STATUS window at the bottom of the screen.

     F5 - ADD WORD TO DICTIONARY

     Once you are satisfied with the pronounciation of your word, press [F5] to
     add it to the dictionary. The screen will prompt you to enter the word you
     wish to add (Up to 32 characters)  and will then assign the pronounciation
     in the PHONETICS window  to that word.  The word  will be added  to the in
     memory exactly as  you enter it  to the screen,  even if that is different
     from the word in the WORD window

NOTE: You can experiment with various phonetic pronounciations of words without
      creating a dictionary.  Only words  specifically added  to the dictionary
      (By pressing [F5]) will actually  be stored in the  in memory dictionary.

     F6 - DELETE WORD FROM DICTIONARY

     To delete a  word from the  in memory dictionary,  press [F6].  The screen
     will prompt you  to enter the word  to be deleted or  to enter an asterisk
     (*) to delete the entire dictionary.

     F7 - LOAD DICTIONARY FILE

     To load a picture from disk,  press [F7].  The screen will  prompt you for
     the path name (Drive and dictionary)  to load the dictionary from.  DO NOT
     ENTER THE FILENAME, the editor will check for dictionary files on the disk
     and present them for selection.  Move the  highlighting to  the dictionary
     file you want to load and press [ENTER].

NOTE: When you  load a  dictionary,  it  will  add  itself  to  the  in  memory
      dictionary.  Any words  common to  both  will  be  written  over  by  the
      dictionary from disk.

     F8 - SAVE DICTIONARY FILE

     When you press [F8], the screen will prompt you for the path name (drive &
     directory) to save the in memory dictionary to,  then for  the filename of
     the dictionary  to be saved.  If a file by that name is already there, the
     new dictionary will be written over it.

     F9 - LIST WORDS IN DICTIONARY

     Pressing [F9] will list all the  words in the in  memory dictionary to the
     screen.  The dictionary display  shows each  word and  its pronounciation.

     F10 - HELP

     Pressing [F10] lists all legitimate  phonemes to the screen.  This list is
     the same as the one in Appendix D.

     CTRL-HOME

     Pressing [CTRL-HOME] clears the window the cursor is in.

     [CTRL-F1]-EXIT

     Pressing [CTRL-F1] and  answering [Y] to the  confirmation query will exit
     the speech editor program. Remember,  if you have not saved your in memory
     dictionary  to disk  it will  be lost  when you  leave the  speech editor.

NOTE: After running the  speech editor program,  you must reboot your PC before
      running the Hearsay program.  Both programs use the same parts of memory,
      and if you do not reboot to clear one before running the other, they will
      conflict,  causing  unpredictable  (And  probably  undesirable)  results.

          5. USING SETUP COMMANDS

     The Hearsay menu is not the only way  you can enable the Hearsay features.
You can also enable  them by setup commands.  A complete list  of Hearsay Setup
is provided in Appendix F. These are commands that you type on the same line as
the HEARSAY  line when  you install  the  program.  For example,  the following
installs Hearsay Gold speech Version 3 with Screen Echo enabled:

          SPEECHV3 1000 [ENTER]
          HEARSAY/S [ENTER

     Besides enabling  Screen Echo and Keyboard Echo,  you can  also change the
Hearsay Menu colors and set the Hearsay key.

NOTE: To see the Hearsay colors, your PC must have a color monitor.

          5A. MENU COLORS

     The background color for the Hearsay  menus can be set to any one of eight
colors (Any combinations of RGB) with  the /B command, & the character color to
any of  sixteen colors  (Any combination  of RGB  and +  intensity) with the /C
command (Refer to  the color chart  in Appendix G).  /B by itself  will set the
background color  to black, and /C by itself  will set  the character  color to
black.

NOTE: If your background and  character colors have  insufficient contrast, the
      characters won't show up and you won't see the menus.

           5B. HEARSAY KEY

     The Hearsay Key is the key you will use to get  in and out of  the Hearsay
menus. To tell the Hearsay which key to use, type /Hn, where n is the scan code
for the key.  You can find  out what the  scan code is for any key by using the
RD-SCAN program on the Hearsay Gold disk.

           5C. RD-SCAN PROGRAM

     To find the scan code for a key, put the Hearsay Gold disk  in drive A and
type A:RD-SCAN [ENTER]. The RD-SCAN program will  wait for you to press  a key,
then display  that key's code  on the screen.  Press [ESC] to exit  the RD-SCAN
program.

          5D. ENABLE KEYBOARD ECHO

     Keyboard Echo can be enabled at install time with the /K command.

          5E. ENABLE SCREEN ECHO

     Screen Echo can be enabled at install time with the /S command.  Putting a
P (Which  disables  punctuation)  or L  after the  /S command  will enable  the
punctuation and  line modes  respectively.  However /P and  /L commands are not
operating at  this time.  You can  also load  a dictionary  file by placing the
filename after the /S command. If the file is on a different drive or directory
then include the path name with the filename. For example, /SPLC:\MY\DICTIONARY
will enable  screen echo,  with punctuation  and line  modes on,  and load  the
dictionary file "DICTIONARY" from the "MY" directory on drive C.

          5F. SET SCREEN ECHO WINDOW

     /W top, bottom, mode will set up the  Screen Echo Window  where top is the
top row numbers (1 to 25), bottom is the bottom  row number (1 to 25) & mode is
either + to only speak text  printed inside the window.  For example, /W10,15,+
will  only  speak text  that  is  printed inside  screen  line  10 to  line 15.

          5G. MENU HELP LEVEL

     Normally Hearsay will only speak the titles of the menus as you enter them
but this can be changed  with the /M command.  Putting a C after the /M command
will enable the menu commands to be read to you each time you enter a menu.  An
S after the /M command will enable the  status to be read each time you enter a
menu. A K after the  /M command will enable  keyboard echo while in the Hearsay
Gold menus so  that each   key you  press while  in the  menus will  be spoken.

          5H. HEARSAY VERSION

     If no version is specified, Hearsay will default to Version 2 for IBM PC'S
and XT'S and compatibles, and Version 3 for IBM AT'S and compatibles.  To use a
different version,  enter  /Vn,  where  n is  the  Version  number to  be used.

          5I. ENTERING MULTIPLE COMMANDS

     The following  example  will  set  the  background  color  to  black,  the
character  color  to yellow,  the Hearsay  Key to  the '  key on  the IBM  AT'S
keyboard, and enable Screen Echo and Keyboard Echo.

          HEARSAY/B/C+RG/H2960/S/K

     If you enter  a command line  with a  non-legitmate  code,  or  specify  a
filename Hearsay can't find on the disk, program load will be aborted & Hearsay
will produce  an error message.  This message will  display the line  up to and
including the error, and prompt: "Error in command string! Do you want help? (Y
/N)", a "Y" answer will display a list of the most commonly used setup commands

          5J. BATCH PROGRAMS

     The best way to  use setup commands  is to  include them in  a HS.BAT file
that you  run  whenever  you  want  to  use  Hearsay  (If  you  name  the  file
AUTOEXEC.BAT it will be  run every time you  boot up your PC).  The file on the
Hearsay  diskette is an example  of a batch file  loading Hearsay. Consult your
MSDOS batch language to create batch files.

          6. HEARSAY PROGRAM FILES

     The following files are included on the Hearsay Gold program disk.

     6A. DEMOV2.BAT

     Loads Version 2 of Hearsay, then runs the Hearsay Demo program (DEMO.EXE).

     6B. DEMOV3.BAT

     Loads Version 3 of Hearsay, then runs the Hearsay Demo program (DEMO.EXE).

     6C. DEMO.EXE

     This program demonstrates Hearsay Gold,  showing how to tailor its speech.

     6D. HEARSAY.EXE

     These are the programs that exercise the Hearsay functions and control the
     Hearsay menus.  With the SPEECHV2  or SPEECHV3 program,  it is the primary
     Hearsay program.

     6E. RD-SCAN.EXE

     This program displays "Scan codes"  of your keyboard keys.  It is included
     to permit you to program the scan code of your selected Hearsay Key into a
     command string.

     6F. SP-EDIT.EXE

     This is  the Speech  Editor program  that is  used  to  create  a  Hearsay
     exception dictionary.

     6G. SPEECH.EXE

     This is main speech generator that utilizes either Version 2 or Version 3.

     6H. SPEECHV2.EXE

     This is  the Version  2 Hearsay  speech generator.  It provides  the basic
     speech generation capabilities.

     6I. SPEECHV3.EXE

     This is  the Version  3 Hearsay  speech generator.  It provides  the basic
     speech generation capabiltites.

     6J. DEMO.SD2

     This is the exception dictionary  file the Version 2  Demo program uses to
     pronounce the words used in the demo.

     6K. DEMO.SD3

     This is the exception dictionary  file the Version 3  Demo program uses to
     pronounce the words used in the demo.

     6L. HSGOLDDR.BAS

     This is a machine language driver program to support the Hearsay functions
     for BASIC programmers (See part XXXXX Programmer's Guide,  for use of this
     program).

     6M. README.TXT

     Contains the text files of all changes to the manual.

     6N. EDITOR.EXE

     Contains the Hearsay Editor menus.

     6O. STATUS.EXE

     Gives a status of memory allocation.

     6P. HS.BAT

     Is the batch file that loads Hearsay, Speech, Editor & Status in one step.
     HS/2 will load Version 2 of Hearsay & HS/3 will load Version 3 of Hearsay.