On Tue, 14 Nov 2006 00:37:09 +0000 (UTC), Skipp is here   
    didst expound thusly:   
      
   >Pretty cool.... I didn't remember this unit even though was and continue   
   >to be a model one fan. I have the speaking speech box and the after   
   >market votrax unit (that worked pretty well) along with more model one   
   >items than probably anyone else.... but this one is new to me. I'll have   
   >to look through my vintage catalogs.   
      
   	The manufacturing date stamped inside the one I have is May 22, 1979.   
   The VoxBox didn't make the first 1980 Computer Catalog (RSC-2), but it made   
   it into the second one (RSC-3).  It listed for $169.95.   
      
   	It *might* have made the 1981 catalog as well, but I'd be surprised if   
   it showed up beyond that.  As I recall, this device didn't last very long   
   -- it was interesting to experiment with, but its capabilities were   
   somewhat limited and a bit impractical; it could only recognize a limited   
   number of words, and was very picky about background noise and differences   
   between speakers.  (Although as the saying goes about the talking dog, the   
   wonder is not that it was done well, but that it was done at all. :) )  It   
   also didn't support the Model-III, if I recall correctly, and even getting   
   it to work under Model-I Disk BASIC required some modification of the   
   application programs due to differences between Level-II and Disk-BASIC   
   implementations of the USR function.   
      
   	The device itself is pretty simple; it just splits the incoming sound   
   into "high" and "low" frequency bands, then feeds each one to a   
   zero-crossing detector and an amplitude-averaging circuit and puts the   
   sampled data onto the bus as a 4-bit nybble.  All the work is done in the   
   driver, which is accessed from BASIC via the USR function; it repeatedly   
   samples the VoxBox's I/O port and stuffs the data into memory, then   
   compares it to see if it matches any of the 32 sample sets you previously   
   trained it for.  If it did, then the USR call would return the number of   
   whichever set matched.   
      
   	Ira's got the manuals up on his TRS-80 Revived site if you want to read   
   up on all the gory details. :)   
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