Author Topic: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style  (Read 17050 times)

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Offline Jope

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #25 on: February 11, 2015, 04:40:34 pm »
This chip reminded me of an article I read some while back in Circuit Cellar about voice recognition with a 8-bit microcontroller.
Fortunately, you can download it as PDF: Low-Cost Voice Recognition, by Brad Stewart, 1998.
If you look at the schematic and figure 1, you will see some commonalities with the VCP200.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 04:43:58 pm by Jope »
 

Offline Excavatoree

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #26 on: February 11, 2015, 05:00:37 pm »
I continue to be surprised by the people who complain about Dave including his son in his videos.

I've given up replying to their comments, but two thoughts come immediately to mind:
1.  No one is forcing them to watch.  (If they are being forced, then call the police.  Don't type a comment.)
2.  There is a feature that Youtube provides that allows one to scroll past bits one doesn't wish to see.

I personally like seeing Sagan - how he's grown, what he's learned.  Reminds me of myself and my friend, who's father was also an electrical engineer.  I'm amazed at how articulate he is at 3, and how he doesn't just parrot Dave.  (Someone mentioned in the comments that Sagan says 'ell-ee-dee"  not "led" as Dave does.   

I have that IC - I never did anything with it.  I think it was on clearance.  I'll have to find it.
« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 05:02:12 pm by Excavatoree »
 

Offline selkathguy

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #27 on: February 11, 2015, 06:04:47 pm »
At 15 minutes you mention that it is important to have the threshold value lower than the offset value of the gain stages.  This is counter-intuitive to me.   I would think that setup would compare most of a sine wave to the positive rail(?)
« Last Edit: February 11, 2015, 07:17:02 pm by selkathguy »
 

Offline gonzoid

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #28 on: February 11, 2015, 06:31:28 pm »
Quote
Don't have a single 10MHz crystal in the lab it seems. Sent the wife to @JaycarAU to get one :->
From https://twitter.com/eevblog/status/564999135640944641

Never heard of this "the wife" provider. Would you recommend their services as a reliable supply chain (package as requested, no counterfeit parts, etc.)? :P
 

Offline Towger

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #29 on: February 11, 2015, 09:08:17 pm »
Never heard of this "the wife" provider.

Must be a stop gap measure while he waits for Free_Electron to deliver the free Tesla...
 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #30 on: February 12, 2015, 12:33:17 am »
Very nice Video Dave!

I especially appreciated the "fundamental Friday" type explanation of the front end circuit.

Nice little chip for its day.

I'm dismayed about the continued limitations of voice recognition technology - at least the software sold to professionals.  I'm frustrated everyday by the limitations and errors produced by Dragon Medical - supposedly the state of the art for the industry.

Oh well, back to dictating patient notes:      Headache, head - ache, HEADACHE, I said headache dammit.... :palm:
 

Offline Mike Warren

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #31 on: February 12, 2015, 02:05:11 am »
I'm dismayed about the continued limitations of voice recognition technology - at least the software sold to professionals. 

I've noticed the same thing, but Siri seems to work impressively well, from a short demo by an iPhone-owning workmate.
 

Offline Riotpack

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #32 on: February 12, 2015, 04:41:08 am »
Could you change the bandpass to a 18db rolloff type and tighten the bandwidth to accommodate male only for your application. Maybe even a noise gate at the end?
 

Offline mtdoc

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #33 on: February 12, 2015, 06:12:31 pm »
I've noticed the same thing, but Siri seems to work impressively well, from a short demo by an iPhone-owning workmate.

Google voice is pretty good too, but they both rely on sending the recorded speech off to a server for processing.

My car has fairly good speech recognition as well. It's an EV but even so there is a fair bit of road noise in the UK due to our low quality road surface materials. It still manages to recognize commands and names in my phone book with about 95% accuracy.

Yes, for simple command type needs , speech recognition is pretty good these days. Unfortunately when it comes to more complex needs - like transcribing a complex narrative - the kind of thing a human transcriptionist can do well - the technology still sucks!
 

Online Smokey

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #34 on: February 13, 2015, 02:02:35 am »
The guy that wrote the article in 1991 was named D.B. Cooper!  He must have started an electronics company with his bag of cash.
 

Offline radiomog

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #35 on: February 13, 2015, 03:35:33 pm »
I have an old RS voice recorder chip I should do the same thing with.. same vintage/packaging as your chip.
I found it going through some old bins of parts in my lab.

finally remembered to take a photo....
not as old as Dave's, but pretty close
My job is so secret, even I don't know what I'm doing!
 

Offline Tek_TDS220

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #36 on: February 13, 2015, 04:16:07 pm »
Paul Moir is correct: the yellowing of the packaging (probably PVC) is not due to bromine.

I thoroughly enjoyed this video.  I remember seeing this IC in a local store, and wondering what application could tolerate the likely accuracy rate.  How high does it need to be useful - >99%?  Still, amazing result for the time and 1.6 KB program space.

I also enjoy seeing short clips of Sagan - he reminds me of my grandson.  Enjoy him while you can.  Time is a jet plane - it moves too fast.
« Last Edit: February 13, 2015, 04:25:34 pm by Tek_TDS220 »
 

Offline SeanB

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #37 on: February 13, 2015, 04:45:08 pm »
Blow moulded, so likely PVC film, which will yellow and go very brittle with time. I have a roll of PVC film that I stored for 10 years rolled up, and the outer layers and the edges are going brittle with age, just from being exposed to air. It is stored in a dark place, so it is not light affecting it, though light will hasten the embrittlement.

Just hope we use up all our film before it goes like that, but as this roll was already 5 years old when I got it 10 years ago as a test roll from a batch, the new batch of Swiss made stuff should last out till it is used up. Only about 2 tons left.
 

Offline Dave Turner

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #38 on: February 13, 2015, 09:50:38 pm »
Voice recognition and artificial intelligence - a dream for many years - particularly for those of us who watched the original Star Trek series in the 60's. There were, apparently, a number of research programmes trying to make the dream become reality. It's hardly surprising that an early barely functioning chip was produced bought.

For a few pence/cents one used to able to buy 'X-Ray Specs', clearly a 'con', nevertheless children still bought them. At least the VCP200 functioned to some degree.



 
 

Offline joeqsmith

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #39 on: March 08, 2015, 06:41:43 pm »
Thanks for the post!  I Really enjoyed this video.   

Many years ago, before the first sound blaster card, I was attempting to make my own speech recognition system.   I had seen speaker independent system at Western Electric/Bell Labs in the late 70's early 80s and became interested in it.   I still have my home made board laying around.   It may not work as good as the radio shack part.   

During my first job, we were making those LCP encoded speech modules for cars.  I still have some old audio tapes from back then as companies were trying to come up with more natural sounds. 

Offline joeqsmith

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #40 on: March 15, 2015, 07:20:37 pm »
Dusted off my home made recognition system which can be seen here: 

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/projects/retro-home-made-speech-recognition-system/

Again, thanks for posting the original Radio Shack video.

Offline zal42

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #41 on: March 21, 2016, 04:21:20 am »
I know this is a moldy oldie topic now, but I just saw this episode and thought I could shed some light on this matter. I worked for a speech recognition company around that time period (not the same one), and I am 95% certain that they have implemented the same sort of tech were were using in the day.

It's much simpler than it sounds, gives workable results, and requires very little processing. Essentially, what it does is count the zero crossings in the speech recording and keep track of how much time has passed between them. It discards all other information.

The timings are threshold filtered and normalized (so that absolute speed of speech doesn't matter, only the ratios of the zero crossing times), and the resulting timing set is compared to a table. The one that it looks the most like is the winner.

I am, of course, glossing over fiddly details, but this is how it works. All the math required is simple and can be done with 8 bit integers.

This chip reminded me of an article I read some while back in Circuit Cellar about voice recognition with a 8-bit microcontroller.
Fortunately, you can download it as PDF: Low-Cost Voice Recognition, by Brad Stewart, 1998.
If you look at the schematic and figure 1, you will see some commonalities with the VCP200.

Yes, I worked with Brad Stewart (I still see him occasionally). That article describes an early incarnation of this method.
 

Online EEVblogTopic starter

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Re: EEVblog #713 - VCP200 Voice Recognition - 1980's Style
« Reply #42 on: March 21, 2016, 04:33:17 am »
Thanks for the info.  :-+
 


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