Capstone Project - Voice tone for phones...HELP

Thread Starter

corner_boy

Joined Jun 24, 2008
36
I have a client that is a blind receptionist and my school has me making a project that will assist her job. What i want to do is have the number pads on the phone, when pushed, say the button she pushed out loud instaed of the dial tone.

Ex She dials "1" and the speaker will say "one" istead of a beep. and so on


So far i have researched that a MT8870 chip and an ISD chip should help with it. BUt i am not certain that an ISD alone will do it and thoughts of using a basic stamp has come up in a few conversations with fellow students.

The MT8870 link below shows how i am starting the project
http://www.electronicsforu.com/EFYLinux/circuit/jun2003/CI-2-DTMF.pdf

Can anyone please assist in helping me understand more of what i need to do?
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
I am not sure of your question. Coding some tone or "led" to give a voice seems a fairly straight forward project. Dragon Dictate comes to mind as one common program that can read back.

However, I would start with talking with the receptionist and finding out what she would want. Many accountants and, I suspect, blind people too can use a keypad without ever looking at the numbers on it. I am not sure I would want my receptionist having every number dialed audibly pronounced in an office, nor do I suspect the receptionist would want it either. What about when she keys in her PIN to do banking, etc.

John
 

HarveyH42

Joined Jul 22, 2007
426
20 years or so ago, there was a a child's toy, called 'Speak-n-Spell'. A trained receptionist, would already be skilled at touch typing, and keypads. There are also braille phones. You should really talk to the receptionist, and see what she can do, needs, and wants. Perhaps an earpiece instead of a speaker would be a kinder option, doesn't share the information with the whole office, or the fact she is handicapped, not to mention it would be annoying and distracting to the rest of the office.
There use to be a government place you could call and get assistance for handicapped employees. It's been a long time, but sure there is still something. They had everything from requirements and legal obligations, devices to assist, financial assistance, tax information, pretty much anything you need to know.
Definately worth doing some research before hand on this one. What you have in mind, might already exist, and be quite cheap (time and money).
 

jpanhalt

Joined Jan 18, 2008
11,087
After a little further thought, you might consider asking whether the receptionist would want a caller ID tone generator. For intra-office calls, for example, it could generate the tones for the last 4 digits. For external calls, it might generate something else. In a very short time, she will recognize the sound of common numbers. It's like Morse code, you learn to recognize the sound; you don't just count the dots and dashes.

John
 

Thread Starter

corner_boy

Joined Jun 24, 2008
36
i guess i didnt explain myself in rushing the topic. I was given this project and changing it is not an option. i appreciate the thoughts of not being convinient, but this is a project none the less.

The phone will have a box connected to it which there will be chips and such as explained earlier. The box will have an output to a phone head set. With this head set she will be able to talk on the phone and hear the other person on it. When she dials out on a regualer basis she will only hear a dial tone when pushing the number pad. What i want to do (aka told to do) is have the tone be verbal in comfirming what she dialed. This will only be a confirmaton of the number or key she has dialed.

So when i dial the number "508-555-5522" I will hear in the head set "five, zero, eight - five, five, five - five, five, two, two"

There will be a power switch and volume control for the audio going to the heat set.

Using the Schematic of the MT8870 as a start minus the LED's.
 

KMoffett

Joined Dec 19, 2007
2,918
I used an ISD chip several years ago the output brief recorded messages. I only had two messages, so used two banks of diode-ANDing to select the address lines for the two segments of memory. Looks like, with a little logic inbetween the MT8870 and an ISD chip, you should be able to address 10 segments of memory.


Ken
 

Thread Starter

corner_boy

Joined Jun 24, 2008
36
I used an ISD chip several years ago the output brief recorded messages. I only had two messages, so used two banks of diode-ANDing to select the address lines for the two segments of memory. Looks like, with a little logic inbetween the MT8870 and an ISD chip, you should be able to address 10 segments of memory.


Ken
Do you think the use of a basic stamp will be needed?
 
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