Mar.31, 1991
SayService v1.2
by Wayde Police

  SayService, and SAY.EXE, represent my first widespread release of a public
domain utility. They are released 'as-is' but I hope they work for you as well
as they work for myself and my friends. This is the first of many utilities I
plan to create for the bridgecards, but is the first only in the sense that I
have tried to follow all the rules for utilizing the Janus library (version
2.0, but it should still work with version 1). I have written other - less
than proper - bridgecard utilities (READCLK, !, SETPCTIME, and TRANSFER) in
the past, but hope to finally produce some clean code - now that I am a
registered developer with some proper documentation.

  If you feel this utility is useful, and saves you some time, or makes your
computer system a little more operationally unified, then feel free to
register yourself with me. Registration involves contacting myself at the
below listed postal or usenet address. You may redistribute these files as
long as all 7 files are included within the archive in an unaltered state.
You may not charge any money for this redistribution, except minimal handling
charges, and/or to cover the cost of the diskette ($2-$6US).

	SayService          20880
	SayService.info       350
	SayService.Doc       7489  (this file)
	SayService.Doc.info  2565 
	SAY.EXE              7840  (the PC program)
	SAY.EXE.info          498
	SAYTEST.TXT           458

  If you feel you can use this utility within a marketed application, you must
contact me - in writing - for expressed permission. Who knows, by then I may
have something far superior to this that you would rather use, or I may even
be interested in doing some custom work for you! 


Overview:

  SayService allows the PC BridgeCard to utilize the Amiga's speech synthesis
capabilities. AFTER running SayService on the Amiga side, the PC will be able
to speak using the SAY.EXE command. SayService can be started either by double
clicking on the SayService icon from workbench, or running SayService from a
CLI or SHELL. I have the command "RUN >NIL: SYS:PC/SERVICES/SayService" in my
startup-sequence and never worry about it after that. I also recommend that
you copy SayService and it's icon into the Services directory in your PC
drawer.

  Once SayService is running on the Amiga side, any text entered by the SAY
command on the PC side will be sent to the Amiga's SayService, where it will
be spoken using the current speech settings. The file SAY.EXE is a DOS
executable binary file, therefore you must transfer SAY.EXE to the PC side
using the AREAD command on the PC. Be sure to use the /B option for AREAD,
this ensures a BINARY transfer and does no file translations. Unfortunately
this /B toggle is not well documented within the earlier bridgeboard manuals,
but at least you know about it now!

for example ...

	C:> AREAD RAM:SAY.EXE C:\UTILS\SAY.EXE /B

Speech settings may be set 2 different ways...

CLI execution:

	At the initial CLI command, the following parameters may be entered.

RATE=[40-400]  - adjusts the playback speed
VOL=[0-64]     - guess. (hint: 64 is the loudest)
MODE=[0-1]     - Natural inflection (0), or Robotic (1)
SEX=[0-1]      - Male (0), or Female(1)
PITCH=[65-325] - change from low baritone to high soprano 
FREQ=[22000]   - similar to pitch, 22000 is default

for example ...
  
	run >nil: SayService VOL=48 RATE=145 PITCH=135 MODE=0 SEX=0

	This only affects the STARTUP defaults of SayService.
	(these examples are the program defaults)

PC DOS modification:

	This is the only way to dynamically change the speech settings after
SayService has been started. Simply use the CLI parameters on the PC side.
This allows you to change the current settings, and will then affect all
subsequent SayService requests. You must identify the command by using the
format   SAY CMD VOL=48 RATE=145 etc.

  This ^^^ identifies the reset of the line as parameter commands and the
line will not be spoken. The current settings will be adjusted.

  Typing SAY ? will display the various options available to you
on the PC side. You should see something similar to this ...
                                                                              
 SAY v1.2  (c) Wayde Police 1991                                              
  usage  SAY This is the PC Bridgeboard talking!
    or   SAY <textfile.txt   (speaks the file "textfile.txt")
    or   SAY                 (speaks each line typed and ends with CTRL-Z)
    or   SAY !               (terminates the Amiga service program)
    or   SAY CMD [RATE=#] [PITCH=#] [MODE=#] [SEX=#] [VOL=#] [FREQ=#]
 ( Adjusts speech parameters, and also works from within redirected files. )
 ( RATE is 40 to 400, PITCH is 65 to 320, MODE=0 is natural & 1 is robotic,)  
 ( SEX=0 is Male & 1 is Female, VOL is 0 to 64, FREQ default is 22200      ) 
   note: SAY requires SayService to be running on the Amiga side.             

  Typing SAY alone will allow you to enter multiple lines of text with each
line being spoken when you hit return. You may also modify the speech
parameters as mentioned above, prefixing the line with CMD.

  It is also possible to redirect input to SAY from a text file,resulting in
the file being spoken. This is done by using the standard DOS redirect symbol
and would look like this ...
 
  SAY <C:\DOCS\READ.ME

  You can stop SAY from reading the file with CTRL-BREAK. Speech parameter
settings may also be intermixed within the text file,and I have included a
small sample file to demonstrate this capability. You may have more fun with
this feature than any other, but be aware that having the computer read back
documents to you can be a useful tool for proof reading. DOS pipes seem to
work with SAY as well, although I haven't thought of any good reason to do
this yet, therefore this is left as an exercise for the user. :-)

  The PC allows you to terminate the SayService task completely by typing...

  SAY !

  I would be interested to hear of any comments, suggestions, or bugs, you
have about this utility. I would also like to hear about what kind of
bridgecard utilities you  would like to see in the future. Some ideas I hope
to pursue are ... 

1. A new version of !  A pc keyboard emulator, very useful for sending
dos prompt commands to the PC without using PCWindow. Especially useful for
those using a separate screen (Hercules, EGA, VGA, etc) for their bridgecard!

2. A FAST and tiny mono-chrome replacement for PCWindow

3. A bridgecard diagnostics/+ program

4. Something very special for 'special' people.
	Sorry, no clues just yet! :)  

#1. and #2 of the above mentioned programs will be shareware, but the larger
projects (#3 and #4) will most likely be distributed on an order-by-order
basis. If you feel you would like to be registered for the shareware utilities
automatically, then include at least $10US with your registration. This allows
me to send you a disk with the final release versions, and reduces the
financial restrictions involved with development. Registered users will also
have the option of purchasing (at a substantially reduced rate) the first
release versions of the larger applications, when they become available for
marketing. In the here and now however, I sincerely hope you enjoy SayService!

Registration address:

	Inertial Frames
	609 West 23 St.
	North Vancouver, B.C.
	Canada V7M 2C2

	or contact me with comments, requests, etc, via usenet at 
	Wayde_Police@Mindlink.UUCP