Votrax

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Votrax Inc. ((properly Votrax International, Inc.)), originally known as the Vocal division of Federal Screw Works or just Votrax, was a speech synthesis company located in the Detroit, Michigan area from 1971 to about 1996 (source?). It began as a division of Federal Screw Works from 1971 to 1973?. In 1974, it was given the Votrax name and moved to Troy and in 1980 split off of its parent company entirely and became 'Votrax International, Inc.', which produced speech products up until 1984.[1][2] In 1984, the company declared bankruptcy and restructured itself as a commercial phone/speech auto-answering systems company after downsizing much of the staff. It remained so until about 1992, when it was renamed yet again to Vysion, Inc. (NOT the same Vysion Inc. which makes security cameras).[3] It remained 'Vysion Inc.' until the company declared bankruptcy in 1995, and from the remains of the old company, restructured itself as 'Maxxar' inc.[4] which exists to this day.

Contents

[edit] Company Origins

All the Votrax speech synthesizers owe their existence to the speech synthesizer design created in 1970 by Richard T. Gagnon. After coming up with a viable design scheme in his basement laboratory, R.T. Gagnon licensed it to Federal Screw Works, the company he was working for at the time, and they continued development of his original design. This became the "Vocal division of Federal Screw Works."[3]

[edit] Company Restructuring

In 1984, Votrax declared bankruptcy and restructured itself as a commercial phone-interface provider, and hence produced no new consumer products. The later commercial-only products are not listed on the below list because literature about these seems to have been of limited distribution and has not yet been found. During the restructuring, much of the existing staff was downsized off, including Tim Gargagliano and Kathryn F. Gargagliano, who along with two other former Votrax employees, Art Velthoven and Dale McDaniel, started Artic Techonologies in 1984.[1][2] Tim and Kate had earlier written an article about the SC-01 for BYTE Magazine.[5]

[edit] Main Products

Votrax is responsible for designing and manufacturing several important early speech synthesizer back-ends, and several widely used integrated circuit phoneme synthesizers. Votrax produced speech backend modules and cards for various personal computers, and worked with the United States Naval Research Laboratory (NRL) to create an extensible speech frontend system. Votrax's speech technology was also used by 3rd parties in several arcade games, Gottlieb System 80 pinball machines, and talking terminals.[6]

During the 1970s, Votrax produced a series of discrete speech synthesizers, with epoxy-coated boards to thwart people copying their designs. In 1980, they designed and manufactured an integrated circuit speech synthesizer called the SC-01. This IC proved very popular in the third party market, and was produced until at least 1984. It was succeeded by the somewhat more dynamic SC-02, also known as the SSI-263P. From the beginning of SC-02 production, Silicon Systems Inc. (now part of Texas Instruments)[6] manufactured the SC-02 chip under the product number SSI-263P, and this was apparently later adopted as the official name of the IC.

[edit] Other Products

Since early in its life, Votrax specialized in making phoneme-based speech synthesizers and text-to-speech algorithms. The popular United States Naval Research Laboratory, or "NRL" text-to-phoneme algorithm was developed by a collaboration between Votrax and the NRL in 1973. This algorithm and variants of it were used on a number of text-to-speech devices, such as the votrax type-n-talk, the votrax personal speech system, and the General Instruments CTS256A-AL2 text-to-allophone chip.[3] A good rundown of the NRL algorithm can be found under reference [7].

Votrax also supplied the SC-02 speech chip used in the amateur radio 'DOVE-OSCAR 17' or 'DOVE' Microsattelite.[8][9][10]

Official Products, by year (from SSSHP[3], unless listed otherwise)

1971:

  • VS1 (prototype only, Gagnon's personal model)
  • VS2 (prototype only)
  • VS3 (prototype only)

1972:

  • VS4 (first model sold by Votrax)
  • VS5
  • VS6 (design prototypes only)

1973:

  • VS6

1973-1975: (exact years unclear)

  • VS6.1
  • VS6.2
  • VS6.3
  • VS6.G

1975:

  • VS6.G2

1977?:

  • VS6.4

1978

  • ML-1 (large rack-mount or standalone unit with four potted boards inside)
  • ML-1ES (ML-1 with added Spanish-specific phonemes)
  • ML-2ES (ML-1ES with more Spanish-specific phonemes?)

1978-1980: (exact years unclear)

  • VSA
  • SVA (first self-contained speech synthesizer, with a 6800 core running the NRL frontend)[11]
  • VSC
  • VSK (medium-sized board/module with plastic? cover, large portion potted?)[5]
  • VSL (smallish potted module, used on an Ohio Scientific expansion board among other places)

1980:

  • CDS1 (emulation of SC-01 running on a ?DEC? mainframe)
  • VSB
  • SC-01 (IC, very similar to VSL except all on one chip. Made at least as early as 49th week of '80, and at least as late as the 8th week of '81)
  • VSM/1 (SC-01 based, has mc6800 running "voxOS")[12]
  • Votrax 'circuit cards?' (SC-01 based)[12]
  • Speech PAC (SC-01 based) (also mentioned at [13])
  • Type n' Talk (?SC-01 based earlier model?)

1981:

  • SC-01-A (IC, bugfix/internal ROM change of SC-01, Made at least as early as the 12th week of 1981, and at least as late as the 49th week of 1984)
  • Type n' Talk (SC-01-A based later model)

1982:

  • Personal Speech System (SC-01-A based)

1983:

  • SC-02/SSI-263P (IC, Made at least as early as 3rd week of 1984)

1984:

1985:

  • SSI-263AP (bugfix of SSI-263P, fixed the reset pin?[15], made until as late as 35th week 1995 rebadged in various ways, such as 'Artic 263')
3rd party products which used Votrax technology, modules or chips

unknown, could be 1979-1986:

  • Enabling Technologies 'Audibraille' (Simple Microcomputer with 128k mem plus 64k? disk drives? [typo of 640k?]) (SVA speech core)[16][17]

1980:

  • Tandy/Radio Shack 'TRS-80 Speech Module' (Slightly stripped down VSL, on a larger circuit board, transition filters are potted)[5]
  • Maryland Computer Services 'Total Talk' (Modified HP-2621 Terminal) (VSB + McIlroy algorithm)[18]
  • Automated Functions 'VERT' (?custom? Terminal) (VSB + McIlroy algorithm)[18]
  • Triformatlon System 'FSST-3' (Modified Zenith Z-19 Terminal) (VSA + NRL algorithm)[18]
  • IBM 'Audio Typing unit' (VSB, ? algorithm)[18]
  • Gottlieb Pinball Machines (SC-01)
  • Midway Wizard Of Wor Arcade machine (SC-01, later machines may have had SC-01-A)
  • Phonic Mirror 'Handy Voice' (SC-01)[19]

1981:

  • Microvox/Intex Talker (SC-01-A)[7]
  • Alien Group Voice Synthesizer (for atari 800?) (SC-01-A?)
  • Midway Gorf Arcade machine (SC-01, later machines may have had SC-01-A)
  • Gottlieb Reactor Arcade machine (SC-01-A?)[20]

1982:

1983?:

1983:

1984-96:

  • Artic technologies (several cards using SC-01-A and SC-02 and SSI-263AP, rebadged as "artic 263")[2]

2005:

[edit] Ongoing Research with Votrax Products

ReactiveMicro.com is currently the owner of a prototype SC-02 given to them directly by Steve Ciarcia previously of Votrax. This PCB was also verified as authentic by George Martin previously of OWL Labs who designed the layout PCB from a larger wire wrap 'proof of concept' design for Votrax. The prototype PCB was used to produce the actual SC-02 IC die. It is in macro form what the SC-02 is in micro form. ReactiveMicro.com will be working on a project to produce a schematic of the PCB and publish it. This will be the first step in trying to reproduce the SC-01 and SC-02 using modern means. Since ReactiveMicro.com has started the SC-02 Proto PCB project they have verified that the actual proto PCB does in fact work in its present form although it operates at around 8v rather than the SC-02's more normal v5. This is probably due to the large quantity old power hungry analog ICs.

[edit] References

  1. ^ a b About Artic Technologies
  2. ^ a b c Artic History
  3. ^ a b c d NMAH | Smithsonian Speech Synthesis History Project
  4. ^ Resume
  5. ^ a b c BYTE.com
  6. ^ a b SC-01A
  7. ^ a b Microvox
  8. ^ Dove
  9. ^ AMSAT-NA Microsats - Participants
  10. ^ Amateur Satellite Summary - DO-17
  11. ^ A voice response system for an office information system
  12. ^ a b "Electronically Speaking: Computer Speech Generation" by John P. Cater -- ISBN:0-672-21947-6
  13. ^ Minspeak
  14. ^ a b c Abledata: Company detail
  15. ^ http://groups.google.com/group/net.micro/browse_thread/thread/51a58ac399404c31/7a4865406f88738a?lnk=st&q=speech+263++reset&rnum=6&hl=en#7a4865406f88738a
  16. ^ http://canada.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/docarch/infovisie/iv/1988/jg2nr2/sep17.doc
  17. ^ Abledata: Product Detail
  18. ^ a b c d David M. Stoffel
  19. ^ Advances in Speech Synthesis
  20. ^ a b Q*Bert's Voice
  21. ^ Tandy Computers
  22. ^ PC Mate Speech board
Other Points of Interest
  • Votrax SC-01-A connected to the internet: send your own phoneme data and hear it spoken!

http://tna.homelinux.net:8080/experiment.pl

http://jolitz.telemuse.net/c/blind-programmable-calculator-project/jim-warren/nasa/sensory-aid/votrax/west-coast-computer-faire/william-jolitz/-269859523

  • US Patent 3,836,717 (32 phonemes, VS1/2(/3?) prototypes)
  • US Patent 3,908,085 (64 phonemes, VS4/VS5/VS6)
  • US Patent 4,128,737 (128 phonemes, ML-1 series)
  • US Patent 4,130,730 (64 phonemes, VS6 series)
  • US Patent 4,264,783 (64 phonemes, VS6 series, (VSA? RAM transition filters))
  • US Patent 4,301,328 (128 phonemes, ML-1 series)
  • US Patent RE30,991 (reissue of 4,130,730)
  • US Patent 4,532,495 (A speech encoding system, 4-bit DPCM Variant)
  • US Patent 4,470,150 (64 phonemes, VS6 series (Prototype TRSSM/VSL?))
  • US Patent 4,433,210 (64 phonemes, SC-01)
  • US Patent 4,829,573 (64 phonemes, SC-01 emulation using an MC68000)
  • International Patents CA1124865, CA1124866, CA1171179, DE2840596, CH625900, and possibly more.