Portable vocalizing device
AssigneeShea Products, Inc.
InventorsF. William Shea, James P. Shea, Patrick Lademan
Life of this patent
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Abstract
A portable speech vocalizer in which a user can select phonemes and phoneme combinations for display and sounding. Switches on keyboard or joystick allow selection of sounds in two different scanning modes, as well as selection of volume and inflection of sounds, and selection of duration or speed of sounds.
Claims12
A portable vocalizing device comprising:
- microprocessor means for storing and accessing data including programmed means for controlling said microprocessor,
- input means for manually selecting said data,
- synthesizer means for synthetically sounding the phonemes and phoneme combinations represented by said selected data,
- display means for visibly indicating the alphabetic character of the phoneme and phoneme combinations represented by said selected data,
- an electrical power supply circuit means for selectively connecting an electrical power source to said microprocessor means and said synthesizer means,
- wherein said input means comprises a keyboard having a plurality of data identifiers and a switch means, each of said data identifiers having an illuminator,
- means for selectively activating said illuminators in either of a first or a second mode,
- wherein in said first mode said illuminators are repeatedly and sequentially illuminated in a predetermined row until a first activation of said switch means whereupon said illuminators are repeatedly and sequentially illuminated in a column selected upon said first activation, said repeated and sequential illumination in said column continuing until a second activation of said switch means whereupon the illuminated data identifier corresponds to the selected data, and
- wherein in said second mode said illuminators are repeatedly and sequentially illuminated by row and column until activation of said switch means whereupon the illuminated data identifier corresponds to the selected data.
The invention as defined in claim 13 wherein said programmed means comprises means for assigning a plurality of phonemes and phoneme combinations to each data identifier of said first set and means for selecting a predetermined one of said plurality of phonemes and phoneme combinations for each data identifier of said first set, and means for assigning at least one data entry to each data identifier of said second set.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.