It will be assumed that you are familiar with the Unix environment and can at least perform basic copying and editing of files.
Unix prompts can vary from machine to machine and for different shells, so will not be shown in this manual. When instructed to enter a command, type the text exactly as it appears. Pay special attention to upper and lower-case characters. See section Case Sensitivity, for more information.
CHATR has two command-line prompts, depending on which mode is being used. In the default `Interactive, Command' mode, the prompt will be
chatr>
If either of the `tts' (text-to-speech) modes are selected, the prompt will be
chatr_tts>
As with Unix, in this manual the prompt will not be shown in examples; just type the text exactly as it appears.
Mainly due to it's Unix base, most CHATR commands and variables
are case sensitive. For example, the command HelpVar must
have capitalized `h' and `v'. The command help, however, can
be entered with an upper or lower-case `h'. Until familiar with the
system, it is probably best to assume all CHATR commands are
case-sensitive.
Much of CHATR's command interfacing is Lisp based. Commands
therefore MUST appear in parenthesis (brackets). This can
take some getting used to - typing (help) rather than just
help.
It is assumed you have a fully installed and configured version of CHATR. If this is not the case, see section Installing the System, or contact your system administrator.
CHATR is started using the Unix-level command
chatr
The CHATR prompt will now be displayed
chatr>
You may type commands at this prompt. Note all commands must be typed within parenthesis. See section Entering Commands - Parenthesis, for further details. Normal EMACS commands can be used to edit a line while entering it. Previous commands are available using ctrl-P.
Commands take the form
( <command name> <arg1> <arg2> ... )
There are many ways to get speech from CHATR. Perhaps the simplest is is by entering
(SayText "Text to be spoken")
It must be stressed that this is a very simple example using many defaults and really doesn't do the system justice. See section For the Impatient, for further simple examples.
On-line help is available using the command Help. Don't
forget `help' is itself a command so should be typed between
parenthesis. See section Entering Commands - Parenthesis, for an
explanation. The system will respond with a list of possible
commands.
If Help is given a command name as an argument, specific help
is given for that command. For example, enter
(Help Synth)
The system will respond
(Synth <utt-obj>)
Synthesize the given utterance based on various
conditions. The utterance object is destructively
updated but is also returned by this function.
Help on variables may be obtained using the command HelpVar in
a similar manner.
Help is also available for the function name preceding the cursor on the command line. To use this facility, position the cursor over the closing parenthesis and type the key sequence meta-H.(1) This will result in the same response as shown above.
To exit CHATR enter
q
This is the only CHATR command that does not require parenthesis. The end-of-file character (typically ctrl-D) may be used as an alternative.
It will be assumed that your system has been suitably set up for playing audio signals. See section Setting up Audio, if this is not so.
The following procedure should get CHATR to at least speak some basic sentences; it should be borne in mind, however that many settings will take default values, so results will not be as good as is possible. Furthermore, plain text-to-speech is actually the least of the intended applications for the CHATR system!
Having started CHATR (see section Starting CHATR), at the command prompt (see section The Command-line Prompt) substitute your system path-name to CHATR and enter
(tts "your-system-path-name/lib/examples/chatr_intro")
CHATR should now politely introduce itself. If you get the error
Sorry, can't talk to audio device: 0
see section Audio Setup - Software, for suggestions.
If you have a plain text file of your own, that can be spoken by CHATR too. Assume your file is called `Readme' and it is in your root directory; simply replace the path and file-name between the quote-marks in the previous example. i.e. enter
(tts "~/Readme")
The contents of that Readme file should now be read.
Text may be spoken as entered from the keyboard. To start this mode, enter
(tts "-")
Now anything typed at the keyboard will be spoken by CHATR. Synthesis will not actually start until each `sentence' is terminated by a period or full-stop.
To exit this mode, enter
.
That is period (or full-stop), return.
Why is the section on audio set-up after instructions on how to make CHATR speak? Simple! This chapter is intended to be a very basic introduction to provide users with a demonstration requiring minimal instruction; if the example in the previous section worked, congratulations! You can now skip the rest of this section and go to the next. If it didn't, we have to get into the dirty stuff fairly early on. You could of course at this point call your system administrator...
Check your home directory for a copy of the file .chatrrc. If
it is there, skip to the next paragraph. If it isn't, you have to
obtain a copy from the CHATR library. To do this, type the
commands
cp <CHATR-PATH>/lib/data/default.chatrrc ~/.chatrrc
chmod +w ~/.chatrrc
Note the name of the file is changed during copying. The new file now needs to be edited to select the audio hardware on your system. The file should look something like
;;;===========================================================
;;; A T R Interpreting Telecommunications Labs
;;;
;;;===========================================================
;;; CHATR Speech Synthesis System
;;;===========================================================
;;;
;;; CHATR example .chatrrc
;;;
;;; Copy this to your home directory then select an audio output
;;; device (see below)
;;;
;;;
;;; Select output mechanism for playing waveforms
;;;
;;; Select *one* of the following by removing the single semi-colon
;;; from the one or two lines following the main comment.
;;; For Sun Sparc (pre-sparc10 or sparc10s without netaudio)
;(Audio Device SUN_AU) ;; direct access to /dev/audio
;;; Another way to access /dev/audio
;(Audio Command "srconv if=$FILE is=`expr $SR / 1000`
; it=short os=8 ot=ulaw of=/dev/audio")
;(Audio Device AU_COMMAND)
;;; For DEC DASBOX output use the following
;(Audio Command "daout $FILE -f `expr $SR / 1000`")
;(Audio Device AU_COMMAND)
;;; For DATLINK use the following
;(Audio Command "naplay -e Linear -o mono -f raw -s $SR $FILE")
;(Audio Device AU_COMMAND)
;;; For NetAudio output (network transparent audio).
;;; can work on suns, hps, linux, sgis, FreeBSD etc
;(Audio Device NA_CONN)
;;; For HPs (within ITL)
;(Audio Command "/homes/singer/audio/bin/splayer
; -srate $SR -l16 $FILE")
;(Audio Device AU_COMMAND)
;;; For alphas
;(Audio Required_Rate 16000)
;(Audio Command "/usr/bin/mme/audioplay -filename $FILE -odevice 0
; -channels 1 -bitspersample 16 -rate $SR -encoding pcm")
;(Audio Device AU_COMMAND)
;;; For SGI irix5
;(Audio Required_Rate 16000)
;(Audio Command "/usr/sbin/sfplay -i integer 16 2scomp chan 1
; rate $SR end $FILE")
;(Audio Device AU_COMMAND)
Check through the list until you recognise the audio hardware
(preceeded by ;;;) attached to your machine. Uncomment the
following three or four lines (i.e. up until (but not
including) the next ;;;) by removing the semicolons from the
first column. Note there is no need to edit or delete anything else
in this file. Save the file, restart CHATR and try the examples
again. See section Audio Setup - Hardware, if it still doesn't work.
There is no special hardware set-up needed, so this section is just a few suggestions on what to try if your system doesn't produce any sounds.
Confirm that the hardware selected in your .chatrrc file is
actually that on your system. Even if initially correct, hardware or
the file may have been changed. If different, edit your
.chatrrc file to reflect the correct system.
Ensure all cables from system to audio unit(s) and to speakers/headphones are correctly connected and secure. Check that switches are in the right positions, gain controls are not turned back, and all units are switched `ON'.
If CHATR still doesn't work, any further diagnostics are beyond the scope of this manual; Now is definitely the time to call your system administrator.
See section For the Impatient, for some further brief examples of how to use CHATR. Alternatively, see section CHATR Interaction, to get all the details.
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