Subject: REND386 Voice Control

From: Chris Hand <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 8 Feb 93 01:53:13 GMT

This guy mentioned on sci.virtual-worlds that he'd used a COVOX sound
board to operate REND386 using Voice commands.  Here's a bit more information
he sent to me.

	-- Chris

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Originally From: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: TECH: Covox VoiceMaser II (Voice Control/Recognition for REND386)

Here in the U.S. the Covox cost about $130 mail order.  I think the
list price is close to $200.  I know that they are available in Europe
as I have received several complaints about their advertising.
They COVOX Sound Master II is advertised as being "the MOST compatible
sound card on the market" and "capable of playing Sound Blaster 
titles with IMPROVED soudn quality"  It is NOT Sound Blaster compatible,
the manual even says so.  There is a BETA TSR which is rumored to 
work, but I have NEVER been able to get it to work.

The voice recognition does work about 70-85% of the time.  This is
dependant upon background noise, mike quality (a throat mike would
probably be best), and consistancy of intonation.  There is some
code floating around to make a Sound Blaster work as a voice
recogintion device as well, but I have never seen it.

The Covox will work, but keep in mind it is a gimick/toy.  But then
again it cost 1/10 of what the next cheapest voice recognition board
does.  Too many compromises in my life between cost and quality!!!
It is Adlib compatible.

The TSR is a gem.  I've had no problems with it, and you should be able
to get your first voice activated macro working in under 5 minutes.
It will take a few clock cycles away, resulting in a 5-10% reduction
in the speed of REND386.

The card has an 8-bit DMA with a sample rate of 25Kbytes/sec.  Naturally
you can save and edit these sound files and play them back.  The 
Adlib part of the card has the 11 Voice FM music synthesizer.  A MIDI
port is built in, but I have no idea if it works as I have no MIDI toys
(only acoustic, they still sound better).  It ahs a 4-watt
amplifier built in with an adjustable volumn control.  It comes with
a 1 meter cable and twin speakers.

I have been unable to get it to work with Windows, either as a sound
card or for voice recognition.
They do sell a developers kit which looks rather complete, but out
of my price range.  You would think they would give the kit away
so that people would write more software for their card, then they
would sell more cards.  

John Williamson
Department of Psychology
Texas A&M University