Does anybody know about Text to Speech solutions that
would work on one of GHI’s .NET devices?
Some hardware chip or some software we could invoke using RLP ?
Do you want it completely standalone?
This: [url]http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?tl=en&q=FEZ%20is%20freaking%20easy[/url] returns a mp3 file which can be played by the MP3 Shield.
Eric
Needs to be standalone… text will be sent to the devices over a GPRS/UMTS connection.
And there are some modules out there but they only support a very limited range of languages and at 300€ a piece… that’s too high
Flite seems to run on ARM CPU’s, perhaps there’s a way to compile it for the ChipworkX and then use RLP ? Any thoughts on that?
If you have a c library to do that then yes you can compile in RLP
or take a look at this:
[url]http://code.tinyclr.com/project/179/voicebox-shield-with-poormans-text-to-speech/[/url]
Anyone remember ‘SAM’ the ‘Software Automatic Mouth’ for the Commodore 64?
[url]- YouTube
It is not great quality compared to more modern options, but if it can be done on a 1mhz computer with 64KB of RAM then surely it can be done on a FEZ 
[quote]Anyone remember the Commodore 64?[/quote]Wow, you’re showing your age!
Those were great machines.
Yes, and I still have one in my possession!! 
Sad, but true. I had one in high school and it was quite an upgrade from my Timex/Sinclair 1000!
First for me was the Vic20 then an MSX,
If someone comes up with a commodore pet!! they are the oldest!!
cheers Ian
I also owned a ZX81, ZX Spectrum, Commodore 64 and Atari 800XL…where are the days 
[quote]If someone comes up with a commodore pet!! they are the oldest!![/quote]Oh, oh. The PET is downstairs next to the Motorola 6800 SS-50 Bus with 8K RAM and tape drive. About as much dust on them as on me.
Is the tape Kansas City format or Tarbell?
If you bear robot voice like ;), you may work using the voicebox shields from sparkun. You have some code available on http://code.tinyclr.com it’s using the speakjet chip. You can have a sample of what sounds the chip can produce here http://www.magnevation.com/SpeakJet.swf
However, this is not “text to speach”. You will have to make some “rules” to convert english text to phonemes. It works ok in englishn, but I found it difficult to produce another language (I tried french. And the beast has an american accent 
If you want direct “text to speach”, you need to add between you FEZ and the speakjet a TTS chip that has all the rules pre-programmed specificaly for speakjet. You have some schematics of a shield, compatible with Arduino and FEZ which does that : http://letsmakerobots.com/node/13210
and here http://www.droidbuilder.com/home/SpeakJetShield
It used to be sold somewhere, you can look it u or build it yourself, it’s easy enough.
It is very easy to use/program: you just send the text to the serial com port, and you get the voice… See the schematics below. I got good results with it, but again, in english only…
How about Winbond’s WTS701. I don’t know if they make it anymore though.
Also don’t know the quality etc…
Thnx for all the suggestions everyone,
will try to go through them one by one.
Meanwhile… @ Nicolas3 that is awsome… but I doubt the old people
at the bus stations will appreciate a Cylon telling them when the bus will be arriving 