Voice Synthesizers

[Buddy Brannan]

I'm not Frank, but I *will* tell you that the Accent SA is built like a
tank. It's built into a nice solid metal box, the DIP switches to set the
port speed, parity, etc. are big enough to set with your fingernail, and
the speaker is OK, too. It's about the size of an old school 9600 BPS
modem. (I know this because I had a GVC 9600 BPS modem at one time, which
sat perfectly underneath the Accent, even if the cables faced 90 degrees
the wrong direction.) Only problem I ever had with mine was the
on/off/volume control getting broken, but they sent a new one and a friend
of mine more handy with a  soldering gun than I am fixed it. It's not
DECTalk speech. In fact, I think it uses the same chip as the Artic and
Sounding Board, but IMHO the speech quality is a bit better than
those...although the Sounding Board's pretty darned good...but I digress,
and besides, you can't use the Sounding Board under Linux anyway. The
serial connector is a standard 25-pin female connector, very like you'd
find on a modem, and uses just your basic standard serial cable. Default
DIP switch settings are 9600,E,8,1 or N,7,1...something like that, though I
have mine set for the standard N,8,1.

I believe that Missing Link Technologies in Kansas City sells it; check
www.mltinfo.com

FWIW, Artic sells a synthesizer now for around $300, but I don't know much
about it (like how well it's built, for instance). I've had my Accent SA
for about 6 years and it works OK. 

--
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV
Email: davros at ycardz.com
Voice mail: 877-791-5298
All opinions are all mine!