BUDs Monologue Speech Assistant from Valiant Technologies, Inc. (Microsoft Windows Development)

Bud's Monologue Speech Assistant

This program is designed to help the speech and motor impaired. It allows the user to build up sentences using word and phrase pick lists. The program makes use of an advanced adaptive word prediction algorithm so that the user is presented with the most likely candidates for the next word in the phrase under construction based on previous usage. The program operates in the Microsoft Windows 3.1 environment (and Win95, 98, 2000, not sure about XP and NT however) and uses Monologue for Windows 1.5 OEM for the speech generation. Ten distinct inputs are needed to control all the actions, however only eight are actually required for operation. The full documentation in PDF format is available for download.

The Monologue Speech Assistant uses Monologue for Windows 1.5 OEM, from First Byte in Torrance California, in order to perform the speech output. This software, in combination with Monologue for Windows and a PC that supports digital sound, is all that is needed to assist the speech impaired. A good hardware combination for portability is a Monochrome Toshiba portable with digital audio support. A monochrome LCD screen is preferable, since they are most visible in direct sunlight and Toshiba systems seem to have the best LCD displays.

There are two distinct navigational modes used by the program. The first is the dictionary selection mode. In this mode, there are 28 listboxes visible on the screen. You move between listboxes with the Cursor Left and Cursor Right keys. You move within the listboxes with the Cursor Up and Cursor Down keys. These screen elements are graphically identified at the end of this document.

The other mode is for word selection. If you move more than the number of entries visible in a listbox using the Cursor Up or Cursor Down keys, then a single large multicolumn listbox, with all the entries for listbox you were in, is displayed. In this box, you can move left, right, up, and down with the cursor keys. Moving Up from the first entry, or Down from the last entry, will put you back into the dictionary selection mode, as will pressing the TAB key. The Guess List listbox is the only exception to this rule. It does not activate the multicolumn listbox because it never contains more entries than are visible on the screen.

Every time a word is highlighted in a listbox, it appears in the Pick Box just above the listboxes. Pressing the SPACE bar will add the entry in the Pick Box to the Phrase Box at the top of the screen. Pressing the BACKSPACE key will remove the last entry from the Phrase Box.

Once a sentence has been constructed, it can be spoken by pressing the ENTER key. The entry in the Phrase Box will stay in place until a key other than ENTER, BACKSPACE, or F1 is pressed.

The program is set up so that you can also type directly into the Phrase Box window. This feature is primarily intended for testing purposes. You cannot directly edit the text in the Pick Box window.

It is possible to enter new words one letter at a time. By using the capital letters, which are present in 26 of the listboxes, words can be constructed since no spaces are inserted between upper case letters. If you need to enter two consecutive words in this way, separate them with the ^ character, which can be found in the second listbox. This symbol is translated into a space. Additionally, any key that is pressed that corresponds to a printable character will be added to the characters displayed in the Pick Box window. This feature is the quickest way to create plurals.

There is one other special character, and that is the hyphen '-'. When this symbol is the last one in the current phrase when a new pick item is being added, then the hyphen is removed and the new text is appended DIRECTLY to the old text. It gives you a simple way to add suffixes to existing words. For example, to create the word 'going' you would pick 'go' '-' and 'ing'. It is not possible to create a hyphenated word using just the ten basic input entry keys. The hyphen can be also found in the second listbox (the Common Word box).

Version 1.2 of the program is highly adaptive in that any words spoken that are not in the existing dictionaries are automatically added and it employs a 100 word-history prediction algorithm. It is designed to forget the oldest material after about 32,000 characters. The best prediction match (if there is one) is displayed in the Pick Box window. All other guesses are scrolled into view in the individual listboxes and they are entered in the Guess List in the left most listbox. The focus is then set to the first entry in the Guess List listbox. Version 1.21 does the speech processing in the background, so you can start building the next sentence while you are still talking. Version 1.22 fixed a DDE bug. Version 1.23 moved the standard alphabet dictionaries into the program, so it is not possible to delete them by accident. The common word and phrase dictionaries remain as external files as do any custom alphabet dictionaries. Version 1.23a updated my address and telephone numbers and added a debugging feature to help me track down execution problems. Version 1.24 changed the way the navigation keys were processed in order to support mouse controlled keyboards such as the M ART Mouse Keyboard and versions 1.25 and 1.26 fixed some minor interface issues. The most recent version of the software (version 1.26) is available for

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Unzip the download file to a floppy in drive A: and then run the INSTALL.BAT file. The BUD application will be placed into the C:\BUD directory while the MONOLOGUE software will be placed into the C:\MONOLOGW directory. Just run BUD.EXE in the C:\BUD directory.

Since the program has been written for the motor impaired, the auto-repeat feature for the cursor keys has been removed. However, it can be restored by passing the letter 't' (for Type-A-Matic) as a command line argument. Passing (almost) anything else will prevent the program from coming up in the speech processing mode (the Bud menu option), which is useful for dictionary management since those functions are accessed from the main menu.

To manage the Custom Dictionaries , simply use the Dictionaries menu item in the main window. The Common Phrases menu item will bring up the phrases.dic file in the Windows Notepad. The Common Phrases are not sorted. The Common Words menu item will bring up the word.dic file in the Windows Notepad. The Common Words are not sorted. The Alphabet menu item will display another menu from which you can select a letter from the alphabet. Each of these menu items will bring up the corresponding Custom Alphabet Dictionaries file in the Windows Notepad if one exists. If the dictionary file does not exist, then you will be prompted as to whether you want to create it. These external Custom Alphabet Dictionaries are created and expanded as new words, that are not part of the standard internal program dictionary set, are entered by the user. These words are automatically added to the word lists and sorted by the program when the listboxes are displayed.

Structures like $1.45, 100%, and 20/20 will be pronounced as expected and will be added to the adaptation file. However, the '$' '.' and '%' symbols will NOT be added to the adaptation file if they are not associated with a digit. The phrase building logic will automatically put spaces between words, but it will not add spaces between capital letters. Numbers and symbols like '$', '%', '.', and ',' group as you would expect. Any word that has a nonalphabetic symbol in it, except for apostrophe, will NOT be added to a dictionary. You should avoid ending words with an apostrophe since a space is NOT added after this character.

This program was written for my second cousin Bud Hamilton who had amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig's Disease), also known as ALS. The program is being distributed as shareware. If you use it, and find that it helps your life, please feel free to send me some token of your appreciation, even if it's just a simple thank you.

Primary Key Actions

Cursor Left

Moves to the listbox on the left, or the next item on the left in the multicolumn listbox. It will wrap to the last listbox, or entry column, if the current box or column is the first one.

Cursor Right

Moves to the listbox on the right, or the next item on the right in the multicolumn listbox. It will wrap to the first listbox, or entry column, if the current box or column is the last one.

Cursor Up

Move up one line. (note that the other navigation keys also work as well). In dictionary selection mode, if you are at the first entry, then the cursor will wrap to the last entry. If you move more than the number of entries visible in the listbox, then the multicolumn listbox is displayed. This box displays ALL the entries in the current dictionary. If you move up from the first entry in this box, then you are returned to the dictionary selection mode.

Cursor Down

Move down one line. (note that the other navigation keys also work as well). In dictionary selection mode, if you are at the last entry, then the cursor will wrap to the first entry. If you move more than the number of entries visible in the listbox, then the multicolumn listbox is displayed. This box displays ALL the entries in the current dictionary. If you move down from the last entry in this box, then you are returned to the dictionary selection mode.

SPACE

Add the text in the Pick Box window to the current phrase in the Phrase Box window. If the multicolumn listbox is visible, then you will be returned to the dictionary selection mode.

ENTER

Say the current phrase. If the multicolumn listbox is visible, then you will be returned to the dictionary selection mode. The phrase will be cleared if any key other than ENTER, BACKSPACE, of F1 is pressed following the ENTER key.

BACKSPACE

Remove the last word from the current phrase in the Phrase Box window. If the multicolumn listbox is visible, then you will be returned to the dictionary selection mode.

ESCAPE

Clear the current phrase in the Phrase Box window. If the multicolumn listbox is visible, then you will be returned to the dictionary selection mode.

DELETE

This key will remove the last character from the text in the Pick Box window. It gives you a simple way of modifying existing words.

F1

Add the current phrase in the Phrase Box window to the Phrase List listbox.

Screen Layout

07/27/03 ern