Votrax

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. [http://www.articannex.ws/artictec.htm About Artic Technologies ] ] [http://www.artictech.com/history.htm Artic History ] ] 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 was somewhat successful in this field, and merged with Vynet Corp., a voice-recognition prompt pioneer, in 1987.http://www.alacrastore.com/storecontent/Thomson_M&A/Votrax_Inc_acquires_Vynet_Corp-241391020] http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E04E0D7143DF93AA25752C1A961948260] It remained Votrax inc. until about 1992, when it was renamed to Vysion, Inc. (NOT the same Vysion Inc. which makes security cameras, though the origin of that company may be related) [http://americanhistory.si.edu/archives/speechsynthesis/ss_votr.htm NMAH | Smithsonian Speech Synthesis History Project] ] It remained 'Vysion Inc.' until the company declared bankruptcy in 1995, and from the remains of the old company, restructured itself as 'Maxxar' inc. [http://www.msu.edu/~chapmand/danres.html Resume ] ] which exists to this day.

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."

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. Tim and Kate had earlier written an article about the SC-01 for BYTE Magazine. [http://www.byte.com/art/9602/sec5/art3.htm BYTE.com ] ] In 1987, Votrax merged with Vynet Corp and the product lines of both companies were combined.

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. [http://www.redcedar.com/sc01.htm SC-01A ] ]

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) manufactured the SC-02 chip under the product number SSI-263P, and this was apparently later adopted as the official name of the IC. Votrax continued to intermittently sell SC-01-A and SC-02 synthesis chips, and Personal Speech System text to speech units until at least October, 1990.http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=113583&top=0&productid=94209&trail=0]

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. A good rundown of the NRL algorithm can be found under reference [http://members.tripod.com/werdav/t2smicrv.html Microvox ] ] .

Votrax also supplied the SC-02 speech chip used in the amateur radio 'DOVE-OSCAR 17' or 'DOVE' Microsattelite. [ [http://201.91.65.226/dove/dove.html Dove ] ] [ [http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/nk6k/msatname.html AMSAT-NA Microsats - Participants ] ] [ [http://www.amsat.org/amsat/sats/n7hpr/do17.html Amateur Satellite Summary - DO-17 ] ]

;Official Products, by year (from SSSHP, 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:
*VS61973-1975: (exact years unclear)
*VS6.1
*VS6.2
*VS6.3
*VS6.G1975:
*VS6.G21977?:
*VS6.41978
*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) [http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=806486 A voice response system for an office information system ] ]
*VSC
*VSK (smallish potted module, used on an unmarked (originally votrax branded?) rs-232 carrier board, among other places. runs on +-12VDC.)
*VSL (smallish potted module, used on an Ohio Scientific expansion board among other places. runs on +-8VDC; almost identical to and interface compatible with VSK)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")"Electronically Speaking: Computer Speech Generation" by John P. Cater -- ISBN 0-672-21947-6]
*Votrax 'circuit cards?' (SC-01 based)
*Speech PAC (SC-01 based) (also mentioned at [http://members.tripod.com/werdav/minspeak.html Minspeak ] ] )
*Type n' Talk (?SC-01 based earlier model?) 1981:
*SC-01-A (IC, bug-fix?/internal ROM change of SC-01, Made at least as early as the 12th week of 1981, and at least as late as the 51st week of 1988)
*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:
*Votalker IB (IBM PC ISA card, SC-02 based) [http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=113582&orgid=109489&discontinuetoggle=1 Abledata: Company detail ] ]
*Votalker AP (Apple II card, SC-02 based)
*Votalker C64 (Commodore 64 cartridge, SC-02 based)1985:
*SSI-263AP (bugfix of SSI-263P, fixed the reset pin? [http://groups.google.com/group/net.micro/browse_thread/thread/51a58ac399404c31/7a4865406f88738a?lnk=st&q=speech+263++reset&rnum=6&hl=en#7a4865406f88738a] , 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)http://canada.esat.kuleuven.ac.be/docarch/infovisie/iv/1988/jg2nr2/sep17.doc] [http://www.abledata.com/abledata.cfm?pageid=113583&top=13147&productid=96471&trail=22,13134 Abledata: Product Detail ] ] 1980:
*Tandy/Radio Shack 'TRS-80 Speech Module' (Slightly stripped down VSL, on a larger circuit board, transition filters are potted)
*Maryland Computer Services 'Total Talk' (Modified HP-2621 Terminal) (VSB + McIlroy algorithm) [http://www.edstoffel.com/david/talkingterminals.html David M. Stoffel ] ]
*Automated Functions 'VERT' (?custom? Terminal) (VSB + McIlroy algorithm)
*Triformatlon System 'FSST-3' (Modified Zenith Z-19 Terminal) (VSA + NRL algorithm)
*IBM 'Audio Typing unit' (VSB, ? algorithm)
*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) [http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/davies/ictadvsp.html Advances in Speech Synthesis ] ] 1981:
*Microvox/Intex Talker (SC-01-A)
*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?) [http://members.aol.com/JPMLee/dthiel.htm Q*Bert's Voice ] ] 1982:
*Gottlieb Q*bert Arcade machine (SC-01-A?)
*Alpha Products 'VS100' (for TRS-80 Model III) (SC-01-A) [ [http://ripsaw.cac.psu.edu/%7Emloewen/Oldtech/Tandy/ Tandy Computers ] ]
*Sweet Micro Systems 'Mockingboard Speech I' and 'Sound/Speech I' (SC-01-A)1983?:
*Sweet Micro Systems 'Mockingboard' B & C (SC-02/SSI-263P)1983:
*Tecmar 'PC-Mate Speech Master' ISA card (SC-01-A + National Semiconductor Digitalker) [ [http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/davies/ictpcma.html PC Mate Speech board ] ] 1984-96:
*Artic technologies (several cards using SC-01-A and SC-02 and SSI-263AP, rebadged as "artic 263")2005:
*ReactiveMicro.com 'Mockingboard v1' (based on the Sweet Micro Systems Mockingboard B) (SC-02/SSI-263P)

McIlroy Algorithm

M. D. Mcilroy used a Votrax VS5 or VS6 original model (single potted block) as the 'Screw Works' backend for his Unix 'speak' command on Unix V3/4/5 in 1973. The binary and source code, unfortunately, seem to have been lost, though the manual pages remain.http://minnie.tuhs.org/PUPS/index.html] Details of the algorithm were later (1974) described in his paper "Synthetic English speech by rule", Bell Telephone Laboratories Computer Science Technical Report #14, which is available on his personal sitehttp://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~doug/]

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.

References

;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
*Votrax ML-1 Reverse-engineering http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/votraxml1/index.html
*Votrax Type n' Talk Reverse-engineering http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/votraxtnt/index.html
*Votrax PSS Reverse-engineering http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/votraxpss/index.html
*TRS-80 Speech Module Reverse-engineering http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/rssynth/index.html (not up yet)
*VSL Speech Module Reverse-engineering http://www.tripoint.org/kevtris/Projects/votraxvsl/index.html (not up yet)
*DEC PDP-11 Impmenentation of NRL algorithm http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/academic/computer-science/history/pdp-11/decus/110375.html
*Votrax SC-02 datasheet cover: http://trshare.triumf.ca/%7Eamaudruz/votrax/votrax-SC-02.jpg
*BYTE magazine article by two Votrax Employees who later married, left the company in 1983 and along with a few other former Votrax employees started ARTIC Technologies: http://www.byte.com/art/9602/sec5/art3.htm
*Alternate version of one of the sources: http://web.inter.nl.net/hcc/davies/talkterm.html
*Intelligibility comparison of Votrax VS6 and ML-1 versus MITalk and an LPC algorithm: http://suppes-corpus.stanford.edu/articles/comped/226.pdf
*NASA/Sensory Aids Foundation Blind Programmable Calculator using Votrax VS-6, 1977: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.