Give Your Computer the ‘Freedom of Speech’”” 


THE FIRST BYTE LEARNING LIBRARY 


Welcome to the First Byte Learning Library! We take great 
pride in presenting these unique, award winning, software 
products to you. Since our inception in 1982, we have been 
dedicated to providing the classroom and home with excep- 
tional educational tools of lasting value. 


The First Byte team has dedicated their efforts to creating 


new technologies to improve the quality of educational soft- 
ware. Research told us that children leam better when they 
not only see but hear the learning material. First Byte re- 
sponded by developing the SmoothTalker*software-only 
speech technology. Each First Byte product talks! Children 
hear their own words spoken and are guided through learning 
activities by delightful talking characters. Spoken tutorials 
make even the beginning reader an independent leamer. 


tional specialists, teachers, and children. Each one has been 
proven to meet important educational needs and compliment 
classroom learning goals. Program activities put the children 
in control, working independently on their own spelling lists, 
math problems, toy box or talking stories with the assistance of 
spoken, individualized tutorials. Each program is enhanced 
with imaginative graphics, animation, and music. The effect is 
achild centered, multi-media educational experience that 
creates high motivation for learning. 


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TABLE OF CONTENTS 


INTRODUCTION 
FILE 

EDIT 

SPEAK TEXT 
GENDER 
DICTIONARY 
EXTRAS 

USE AGREEMENT 


SMOOTHTALKER® 
INTRODUCTION 


SmoothTalker is the result of nearly four years of work by First 
Byte, the world’s leader in software-only speech technology. 
SmoothTalker is a sophisticated software-only speech synthe- 
sizer that converts text to speech. The text entered can be as 
simple as individual letters or as extensive as a multi-page 
report. While no knowledge of phonetics is needed to use 
SmoothTalker, (normal English text works just fine) you can 
also enter phonetic coding directly if you choose. 


SmoothTalker can accept text from three places: 
+ From the display screen via your computer keyboard. 


* From a pre-stored SmoothTalker document that was previ- 
ously created using SmoothTalker 


+ From a pre-stored text document that was created using 
another software program. 


Getting Started with SmoothTalker: 


After the program loads, you will be asked to select Main Menu 
or New User. The New User option gives you helpful hints that 
will assist you in operating SmoothTalker on your particular 
computer. 


The SmoothTalker Main Menu appears on the screen with a 
new, untitled Writing Box. The cursor is blinking in the upper 
left-hand corner ready for you to enter text. The small box in 


2 


the upper left-hand corner can be selected to close the current 
Writing Box. The arrows and boxes on the right-hand side of 
the screen allow you to scroll through a document. 


The SmoothTalker Main Menu presents five user options; 
1) File; 2) Edit; 3) Speak Text; 4) Gender; 5) Dictionary; and 
6) Extras. Each Main Menu option is fully described in the 
following section. 


FILE 


The SmoothTalker File Menu allows you to organize and 
manipulate your text documents. Any option appearing in 
lighter text is not accessible unless preceeded by a necessary 
action i.e., you must Close a document before the Open and 
New options are available. 


4 technology. SmoothTalker 
ted soltware-cnly speech synthesizer that converts text 


NEW: Make this selection to open a New Writing Box. This 
option can only be made when there isn't a Writing Box cur- 
tently open on the screen. 


OPEN: Make this selection when you have closed the 
current writing box and wish to Open another document that 
you have previously saved. 


CLOSE: Make this selection when you are finished working 
on a document and wish to Close it. As a protection against 
accidentally losing your work, a dialog box will appear and 
give you the opportunity to Save the document. 


SAVE: Make this selection when you wish to Save the 
document you have open on the screen. You may be saving 
it for the first time or saving the changes you have made 
during this work session. If a document of the same name 
already exists on the disk, the Save command will replace it 


4 


with this latest version. You may Save a document either to 
the SmoothTalker program disk or to a data disk. 


+ SAVE AS: Make this selection to Save a particular version 
of a document under a new name. 


+ PRINT: Make this selection to Print a paper copy of your 
document. 


* QUIT: Make this selection to exit SmoothTalker. If you have 
made changes to this document, you will be presented with 
a dialog box giving you the opportunity to Save the changes 
before quitting. 


EDIT 


SmoothTalker, as a simple wordprocessor, uses the standard 
editing functions of Cut, Copy, Paste, and Pick All. 


CUT: Select (highlight) the text you wish to delete from your 
document. Once it changes color to signify it is selected 
text, choose Cut from the Edit menu. This portion of the text 
will disappear from your document. It is now available to be 
Pasted in another location. 


COPY: Select (highlight) the text you wish to copy. Once it 
changes color to signify it is selected text, choose Copy from 
the Edit menu. This portion of your text will remain in the 
document, but it is now available to Paste in a new location. 


PASTE: After you Copy or Cut a portion of text in your 
document, it is now available to be Pasted in a new location. 
Place your cursor in the desired location, and select Paste 
from the Edit menu. The text you last Copied or Cut will 
appear in your document beginning at the cursor. 


PICK ALL: Select Pick All to select or automatically high- 
light your entire document. Now all of the text is ready to be 
Cut or Copied. 


SPEAK TEXT 


SmoothTalker has the capability to speak any text entered by 
the user. It can speak a single letter, a series of numbers, ab- 
breviations, and entire text documents. The user is in control 
of the Speak Text function able to select how and when the 
text will be spoken. The user can also convert English text into 
Phonetics and further manipulate speech settings and pronun- 
ciation. The voice quality of this unlimited text-to-speech 
technology is intelligible with a robotic intonation that sounds 
somewhat artificial to the human ear, The following Speak 
Text options are available: 


+ SPEAK TEXT: The Speak Text command allows you to 
speak all or part of a document. To have the entire docu- 
ment spoken, just select Speak Text. To hear only a part of 
the document, select (highlight) the text you wish spoken, 
and SmoothTalker will say just that portion when you acti- 
vate the Speak Text command. 


SHOW SPEECH SETTINGS WINDOW: SmoothTalker 
allows many aspects of speech to be user-controlled. 
Volume, Pitch, Speed, Gender, and Tone. SmoothTalker 
speaks text without ever needing to change these options, 
but using them gives you more control over the way the 
voice sounds. The speech variables within a document can 
be changed at two different levels: 


1) Global changes affect the way the entire document and 


the way it is spoken. Global changes are made from the 
Speech Settings Window or from the Gender option on 


7 


the Main Menu. Global settings are “invisible” and can't 
be seen when looking at the document. They 

can only be seen by looking at the Speech Settings 
Window. Global changes are not saved with the docu- 
ment. 


2) A Local portion of the document (like a paragraph, 
sentence, or even a word) can also be changed. To 
change the speech variables for just part of your docu- 
ment, select (highlight) the desired text and make 
variable selections on the Speech Settings Window. You 
can also enter the speech variable symbols manually. 
You will know the speech output for this portion of the 
document has been changed because the text will appear 
within double brackets <<like this>>. The speech vari- 
able symbols following the left pair of brackets reflect your 
selections and tells SmoothTalker how this section is 
to be spoken. 


The Show/Hide Speech Settings Window command toggles 
or alternates between Show and Hide. SmoothTalker will 
not allow the Show Speech Settings Window command to be 
used if the document is empty. If the Phonetics Window is 
open, you will have to put it away (Hide) before you can 
select the Show Speech eee Window. Bee 


Window. 


1) Changing the Variables: Change the variable settings, 
volume, pitch, speed, tone, and either Male or Female 
voices, by selecting the buttons shown on the window. 


Smooth Talker is a result of nearly four years of work by First Byte, 
the worlds leader in software-only speech technology. SmoothTalker 
is a sophisticated software-only speech synthesizer that converts text 
to speech. 


Tone 
2) Changing the Entire Document: Global changes are 
made when you change the settings and then select Set 
. Remember, that Global settings are 
“invisible” and can't be seen when looking at the docu- 
ment. The change manifests itself only in the characteris- 
tics of the speech output when the document is spoken. 


3 


Changing a Portion of the Document: Local changes 
are made when you select a portion of the text, change 
the speech settings, and select (highlight) Set a Single 
Selection option. The text section will automatically be 
enclosed within the required <<brackets>> and the 
speech variable codes inserted. 


4) Valid Codes and Ranges for the Speech Settings 
Window: The following codes represent the local or 
global speech output changes possible within Smooth- 
Talker. 


<<V text>> = Volume (0=soft to 9=loud) 
<<P text>> = Pitch (0=soft to 9=loud)* 

<<S text>> = Speed (0=slow to 9=fast) 

<<T text>> = Tone (T=tenor or B=bass) 
<<M text>> = Gender (F=female or M=Male) 


* Using the letter “P” is optional; a number without a 
Preceding variable letter is assumed to be a Pitch value. 


5) Reset Settings: The speech settings automatically are 
set to the values of Volume 5, Pitch 5, Speed 5, Bass 
Tone, and Male Gender (V5, P5, S5, B, and M). At any 
time you can quickly reset the Speech Settings Window 
to these standard default values by selecting the Reset 
Settings option. 


Manually Embedding Speech Variables: After you 
have thoroughly mastered encoding variables by using 
the Speech Settings Window, you may wish to manually 
encode speech variables. Remember that the section 
to be changed must usually <<begin and end>> with 
double brackets. The coding of the variables always 
follows the left set of double brackets. The variables can 


6) 


be entered in any order. One or more spaces must follow 


the last variable before the English text starts: 
<<S8V7 Good Morning>>. 


7) Additional Variable Codes: Besides V, P, S, T, B, M, 


and F, two other codes are valid, but they can only be 
inserted into your English text string manually. 


10 


+ SHOW PHONETICS WINDOW: 


<<~phonetic text string>> The ~ symbol tells Smooth- 
Talker that the following text string is in phonetics, not 
English. You can learn more about this in the section 
about Using and Showing Phonetics. 


<<Dx>> equals Delay (according the following times) 
Delays can be accumulated so that <<D2D3D8>> would 
cause a delay of 9.5 seconds. 


0 = nodelay 

= .25 second delay 
50 second delay 
1 second delay 
2 second delay 
3 second delay 
4 second delay 
7 = 5 second delay 
8 = 6 second delay 
9 = 10 second delay 


Onawon— 
wound 


8) Clearing Embedded Commands: Clearing any embed- 
ded command is a simple process. Use the keyboard or 
mouse to select (highlight) the brackets and their 
associated speech variable codes, and Cut them using 
the Edit menu. 


The Show/Hide Phonetics 
Window command toggles or alternates between Show and 
Hide with subsequent menu selection. SmoothTalker won't 
allow this Window to be used until after the desired text 

for phonetic conversion has been selected (highlighted) in 
your document. It is also impossible to have both the 


11 


SmoothTalker is a result of nearly four years of work by First Byte, 
the worlds leader in software-only speech technology. SmoothTalker 
1s a sophisticated software-only speech synthesizer that converts text 
to speech. 


SES Phonetics Window amas 


SMU WDHUTAAKER OLHZAXrHZAHILAX valHrill Y15AOry 1HrzAX¥ WER 
ADATIERStbAYt DHAXW4ERIdziI YGERIHnsAAftwEHrepIYCHtseHkn2A. 
ALLAX{IOIY. smU WDHt7AAKER6 IHZAXsAASIHstAXkAZts 

Exo Wall! ¥sp! YCHs41HaTHEHsA YZERDH AEtKAXAV 3ERtstZEHkstt 1U W 


Speech Settings Window and the Phonetics Window open at 
the same time. Use the following guidelines when working in 
the Phonetics Window. 


1) Select the portion of text you wish to convert into phonet- 
ics. 


2) Select Show Phonetics Window. The Phonetics Window 
can show 250 characters of equivalent phonetics at one 
time. If you selected an English text phrase that requires 
more than 250 characters of phonetics, SmoothTalker will 
truncate the length of the selected English text. 


3) Once the Phonetics Window is open, you can select 
additional English phrases to show their phonetic equiva- 
lents. Simply select the text in the Writing Box and the 
Re-Phoneticize option in the Speak Text menu. The 
new phonetic equivalent will be displayed in the 
Phonetics Window. 


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4) 


5) 


6) 


Once the a text segment has been phoneticized and 
displayed in the phonetics window, you can speak or 
modify the phonetics. SmoothTalker treats the window 
with the blinking cursor as the active window. Make sure 
the Phonetics Window is active before trying to modify or 
speak the phonetics. 


The contents of the Phonetics Window are not saved with 
the document. If you want to keep the phonetics that you 
modified in the Phonetics Window, Copy or Cut them 
from the Window and paste them in your Writing Box. 
The Writing Box can contain all English text, a mixture of 
phonetics and English, or all phonetics. To use a mixture 
of English and phonetics, put the phonetics string, and a 
~, inside <<double brackets>>, like this: English text 
string. <<~phonetic text string>> English-text-string. 


Phonetic Codes: The following Phonetic Code can be 
used to modify phonetics in the Phonetic Window, the 
Writing Box and the Dictionary. Remember to use the 
<<~ phonetics>> symbols to indicate a change from 
English to phonetics. If you are using the Phonetics 
Window to Re-phoneticize English text, SmoothTalker 
automatically makes the change and supplies the sym- 
bols. If you are doing it manually in any location, you 
must insert the symbols from the keyboard. 


shortens the following phoneme 

lengthens the following phoneme 

raises the current pitch value (0-9) by one. 
lowers the current pitch value (0-9) by one. 
AE _ short “a” as in “last” 

EY long “a” as in “ace” 


-sen 


13 


= -a~-acxr-utu N m> Perce, > zen 
ws‘ SZYLLPOFSQRSSST QS ATX 


short “e” as in “best” 
long “e” as in “beet” 
short “i” as in “fit” 

long “i” as in “ice” 

short “o" as in “cot” 

long “o” as in “dose” 
short “u” as in “yp” 

long “u” as in “lute” 
intermediate “o” as in “caught” 
“u” sound in “bgok” 
schwa sound in “against” 
dipthong in “ngise” 
dipthong in “loud” 
“further” or “further” 
“chin” 

“thin” 

“shin” 

“then” 

z as in “pleasure” 

“sing” 


“which” 
“pin” 
“tin" 
“kin” 
“bin” 
“din” 
“Jam” 
“Given” 
“fin” 
“sin” 
“vim 
“zen” 
“fight” 


14 


m “Might” 
n “night” 
h “bit” 

r “tate” 
w “wait” 
y "Yet" 


7) Speech Variables: Special variables in a phonetic text 
string are embedded differently from an English text 
string. You do not use the <<beginning and ending>> 
brackets as you learned to do with English text. Instead 
the codes are just placed in the phonetic string at the 
desired position. Here are the valid codes and ranges: 


V = Volume _—(0=soft to 9=loud) 

* = Pitch (O=soft to 9=loud) 

S = Speed (0=slow to 9=fast) 

T/B = Tone (T=treble or B=bass) 

D = Delay (0=short to 9=long) 

** = Gender (Male or Female) 

* = Do not use “P" for pitch just enter any 
number 0-9 

** = See “Additional Variables Codes” section for 
delay values 


+ TURN REPEAT ON: The command Turn Repeat On will 
cause either the entire document or a user selected (high 
lighted) portion to continously repeat. This command 
toggles or alternates between On and Off with subsequent 
menu selections. For example, if you select Turn Repeat On 
it will become active. When you select Speak Text the text 
will be spoken and continuously repeated until you press the 
designated speech interrupt key or button for your computer 
(See Start Up Card). 


15 


GENDER 


SmoothTatker 1s a result of nearly four years of work by First Byte, 
the worlds leader in software-only speech technology. SmoothTalker 
ates sottware-only speech synthesizer that converts text 
to speech, 


SmoothTalker offers both a male and female voice. Using the 
Speech Settings Window, you can either change the voice for 
the entire document or embed gender changes throughout the 
text. This Gender option on the Main Menu bar is a quick way 
to change the voice for the entire document only. It cannot be 
used to embed voice changes locally. Voice changes using 
Gender are not saved with the document. 


DICTIONARIES 


SmoothTalker is a qules based software speech synthesizer. 
Because English is such a complex, irregular language, there 
are many exceptions to the rules. SmoothTalker cannot 
pronounce every English word correctly. For example, the 
word “chihuahua” (the tiny dog with pointed ears) is not pro- 


16 


nounced at all the way it looks. It is, instead pronounced “Chi- 
waw-waw”". Another use of the Dictionary is to enter abbrevia- 
tions. For example you may want to have the abbreviation 
A.W. refer to your company name, American Widget. The 
Dictionary function allows SmoothTalker to handle exceptions, 
mispronunciations, and abbreviations. The Dictionary allows 
you to: 


1) Correct a mispronunciation using misspelled English: 
Chihuahua=chi waw waw. 


2) Correct a mispronunciation using phonetics: 
Chihuahua=<<~CHAXwAAWAA>> 


3) Define an abbreviation (using either English or phonetics) 
So it will be correctly spoken: AW=American Widget. 


SmoothTalker allows multiple Dictionaries to be present on the 
disk, and at any point in time, one (and only one) of these Dic- 


17 


tionaries can be present within the computer's memory. Any 
Dictionary currently in memory, is called the Current 
Dictionary. 


When SmoothTalker is first opened, it automatically loads the 
System Dictionary from the disk into memory. You enter your 
commonly used exception words and abbreviations into this 
System Dictionary. 


In Auxiliary Dictionaries that you create, you can place less 
frequently used exception words and abbreviations. You 
determine the name for these Auxiliary Dictionaries. They are 
not automatically loaded into memory when the program 
begins. 


+ EDIT CURRENT DICTIONARY: This options allows you to 
add, delete, or change exception words or abbreviations in 
the Current Dictionary. The Edit Current Dictionary function 
references the Jonowing terms: 


Correct Pronunciation 


18 


Correct Spelling: Enter the word or letters that need to be 
changed in the Current Spelling Box. SmoothTalker will 
display and speak the current pronunciation of this entry in 
the Correct Pronunciation Box. If you are entering abbrevia- 
tions, the first character must be an alphabetic letter; D374 is 
valid, 374D is not. Only letters and numbers are allowed, 
not special characters or pronunciation marks. 


Correct Pronunciation: If the pronunciation of the word is 
not correct, you can backspace and edit. If you wish to edit 
using English text, the word “library” could become “lie 
brary”, the abbreviation “AW" could become “American Wid- 
get”. You can also change pronunciation by entering pho- 
netics and embedded speech variable commands. 

The English word Chihuahua becomes 
<<~V7S9CHAXWAAWAA>>. If your Correct Pronunciation 
of a word sounds “cut off" when spoken, it is due to the 

fact that SmoothTalker will truncate phonetics that exceed 
32 characters. 


Say It: Use this option to hear the new pronunciation as 
many times as necessary. 


Add It: Use this option to add the Correct Spelling and 
Correct Pronunciation to the Current Dictionary. Once in the 
Current Dictionary this word will be pronounced correctly in 
any document you create. 


Delete It: Use this option to remove a word from the Current 
Dictionary. 


Cancel: Quits the Dictionary function without making any of 
the changes or additions. 


19 


Quilt: Quits the Dictionary function and makes all your 
changes and additions to the Current Dictionary. Smooth- 
Talker will prompt you for the name you want this Current 
Dictionary to be called on the disk. If you supply a name 
already used on the disk, it will overlay it with the contents of 
the Current Dictionary. 


VIEW CURRENT DICTIONARY: This option allows you to 
look at, but not change, the exception words or abbreviations 
in the Current Dictionary in memory. 


REPLACE CURRENT DICITONARY: This option can be 
thought of as “switching” the Current Dictionaries. This 
clears out of memory the Current Dictionary and then in an 
automatic second step, loads another user-specified Diction- 
ary. 


CREATE NEW DICTIONARY: This option creates a new 
Dictionary. This clears out of memory the Current Dictionary 
and then in an automatic second step, creates a new and 
empty Dictionary with a new, user-specified name. 


EXTRAS 


The following options control the speech output while you are 
entering text into the Writing Box. You can have one, two, or 
all options active while you type*. 


+ LETTER BY LETTER: Make this selection and each letter 
will be spoken as you press the key. 


+ WORD BY WORD: After you enter a word and press the 
spacebar, the word will be spoken. 


20 


SmoothTatker is a result of nearly four yeard Word by Word 


Sentence by Sentence 
Quiet 


+ SENTENCE BY SENTENCE: Make this selection and each 
sentence you type will be spoken after you enter the punc- 
tuation mark, i.e., period, exclamation point, or question 
mark. 


“The Extra options are not available in the Macintosh version. 


hells 


21 


USE AGREEMENT 


First Byte, a California Corporation, warrants that the diskette 
on which this program is recorded is free from defects in 
material and workmanship for a period of 6 months from the 
date of purchase. 


In the event that the diskette fails to operate due to defects in 
material or workmanship within 6 months of purchase, return it 
to First Byte for a free replacement. Should the diskette fail to 
Operate after the 6 month period, it will be replaced for a 
$10.00 charge. 


The diskette and accompanying booklet are licensed to the 
purchaser for personal use only. Neither may be copied, or 
used for any commerical purpose without the express written 
permission of First Byte. The diskette is not copy protected 
and i q 

personal use. 


The above warranties are in lieu of all warranties, express, 
implied, or statutory, including but not limited to, any implied 
warranties or merchantability and fitness for a particular 
purpose and of any warranty obligation. In no event shall First 
Byte be liable for indirect, special or consequential damages. 


