JPS6398024A - Voice response system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To obtain a voice response system capable of voice output together with pattern display onto a personal computer (PC) by providing a voice memory and a voice output means to the personal computer (PC) and transferring a voice address data and a pattern display data from the voice response device to the PC. CONSTITUTION:In calling the audio response unit 19 by a telephone set, the call is detected by a supervisory circuit 13 to connect the line and to send a signal to a main control section 17. The main control section 17 controls a changeover circuit 12 to switch the input from an exchange 11 to a MODEM15 and to control a control section 16 thereby sending a carry. The PC18 detects the carry via a MODEM4. The data communication between the device 19 and the PC18 is executed by the MODEMs 15, 4 via the exchange 11. On the other hand, the control section 17 sends the PCM voice address data to the control section 6 via a control section 16 of the PC and the exchange 11 through the control circuit 3 of the PC18. The control section 6 reads the voice data from the memory 7 to output a voice from a speaker 9 via a demodulation circuit 8.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] [Field of Industrial Application] The present invention relates to a voice response system using a personal computer, and particularly to a voice response system in which character display processing and voice output processing can be performed simultaneously on the personal computer side. Regarding the system.

[Conventional technology]

In recent years, with the spread of personal computers, systems have been proposed in which a personal computer is connected via a telephone line as a terminal of a voice response device. This system uses a personal computer's connection network control circuit.
When the telephone calls the voice response device and is connected, the telephone is configured to switch the connection to the personal computer.

A system using this type of personal computer was developed by Nikkei McGraw-Hill on June 24, 1985, for example.
This is shown in the article ``The World's Largest Personal Computer Communication Service'' written on pages 112 to 118 of the document ``Nikkei Personal Computer'' published on 2007.

[Problem that the invention seeks to solve]

In the system according to the above-mentioned conventional technology, although a personal computer and a voice response device are connected, the personal computer only displays the response (information) from the voice response device as text information on the screen, and the personal computer only displays the response (information) from the voice response device as text information. The problem was that it was not possible. This may lead to misreading of the characters displayed on the screen.

An object of the present invention is to provide a voice response system capable of displaying a screen and outputting voice on the personal computer side.

[Means for solving problems]

The above object is achieved by providing a voice memory and means for outputting voice on the burner computer side, and transmitting voice address data and screen display data from the voice response device to the personal computer IC.

[Effect]

The personal computer that receives the data from the voice response device selects screen display data and voice address data, displays characters on the screen based on the screen display data, and burns the data based on the voice address data. The data for voice output is retrieved from the voice memory of the null computer and the voice is output. This makes it possible to output audio along with the screen display on the personal computer, thereby eliminating misreadings and the like.

〔Example〕

An embodiment of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. 1st
The figure is an overall explanatory diagram of the voice response system according to this embodiment.

The system shown in FIG. 1 is comprised of a voice response device 19, a personal computer 18 connected to the response device via an exchange 11, which is a telephone line network, and a telephone 10.

The voice response device 19 includes a line monitoring circuit 13 that detects a call through the exchange 11, a personal computer control section 16 and a modem 15 that control the personal computer 18 in response to the call, and a voice output section 14.
and a main control section 17 that controls them.

The personal computer control section 16 will be explained using FIG. 5. The personal computer control section 16 shown in FIG. and a line processing circuit C that controls a transmission control procedure with the personal computer 18. It controls processing and data transfer to the line processing circuit 43. The line monitoring circuit also performs operations such as inputting data from the main processing circuit center, assembling and transmitting transfer data, determining errors in received data, and extracting data.

Personal computer control unit 16 configured in this way
is for transmitting audio information to the personal computer 18 in accordance with instructions from the main control section 17.

Further, the personal computer 18 is composed of a keyboard 11, a display section 21, a control section 3, a switching section 5 for switching between the telephone 10 and the modem 4, and an audio output section, which is a feature of this embodiment, as shown in FIG. , the audio output unit 20 includes an audio memory 7 storing audio patterns, and the memory 7.
It consists of a demodulator 8 that demodulates the audio pattern read from the speaker, a speaker 9, and an audio output controller 6 that controls these. Furthermore, the switching unit 5 of the personal computer 18
The telephone 10 and the exchange 11 are connected, and the switching circuit ratio of the voice response device 19 is such that the line monitoring circuit 13 is connected to the exchange 11.

Details of the termination of the audio output are shown in FIG. The audio output section 20 is roughly divided into the audio output control section 6, the audio memory 7, the demodulation circuit 8, and the speaker 9, as described above. The audio output control unit 9 includes an audio address register 21 that receives audio address data sent from the control circuit 3, and an address counter 22 that reads audio data for one second from the audio memory 7. The demodulation circuit 8 consists of an audio address generation circuit 23 that generates an address for the audio memory 7 from the information in the audio address register 21 and the address counter 22, and a flip/70 knob unit that notifies the control circuit 3 of the end of audio output. The digital-to-analog converter 25 converts the 9 PCM audio data outputted from the audio memory 7 into an analog signal, and the frequency band of the digital-to-analog converter word output is limited to 5T:1.
- It is composed of a pass filter 26 and an amplifier η that drives the smooth force 19.

The audio output unit configured in this way stores the audio address data in the audio address register 21 according to the data set signal sent from the control circuit 3, initializes it with the reset & start signal, and then processes the audio data using a 125 μs clock (audio data is 8
kHz sampling), the sear address counter 22 starts operating. The audio address generation circuit 23 generates an audio memory address to be read from the audio memory 7 based on the audio address data stored in the audio address register 21 and the value of the address counter 22. The audio memory 7 stores in advance 8-pit PCM audio data sampled at 8 KHz. As shown in FIG. 3, the configuration of this audio memory 7 is such that PCM audio data sampled at 8 KHz is
Each word from the 50th word to the 50th word is stored in units of 1 second. The audio address indicates the beginning of the word in decimal notation. Furthermore, since the voice address data from the control circuit 3 is in the 1000th digit or more of the start address of the memory, the generation of the voice memory address is performed using the output of a counter that updates from 0 to 7999 and the address data multiplied by 1000. It can be obtained by adding the digit-aligned output. FIG. 4 illustrates this principle. Note that the reason why addresses are generated in this way is to reduce the amount of information of voice address data.

According to the memory address generated in this way, the audio memory 7 sequentially reads out PCM audio data for one word and one second and outputs it to the demodulation circuit 8. The demodulation circuit 8 receives the input P
CM audio data is converted into an analog signal by a digital-to-analog converter 25, and after removing necessary frequency band components by a low-pass filter 26, it is amplified by an amplifier.

This amplified analog signal is output as audio by the speaker 9.

On the other hand, the address counter 22 updates the address value from the address generation to the address corresponding to one second of audio, and when the address update for one second is completed, operates the flip-flop 29 to send the audio to the control circuit 3. At the same time as issuing a termination signal, the operation of the address counter 22 is stopped.

In this manner, the audio output unit 20 according to this embodiment outputs the corresponding audio for one second according to the audio address data for each word inputted from the control circuit 3.

The voice response system configured as described above operates as follows as a whole.

First, when a call is made from the telephone 10 to the voice response device 19 using a normal dialing operation, the voice response device 19 detects the call with the line monitoring circuit 13, connects the line, and connects the main line. A signal is sent to the control section 17. The main control section 17 controls the switching circuit 12 to switch the input from the exchange 11 to the modem 15, and the main control section 17 controls the /<-sonal computer control section 16 to transmit the carry via the modem. personal computer 18
When the call from the telephone 10 ends, the switching circuit 5 switches the connection with the exchange 11 to the modem 4, so the control circuit 3 detects the carry from the voice response device 19 via the modem 4. From now on, voice response device 19
Data communication with the personal computer 18 and the personal computer 18 is carried out by the respective modems 15 and 4 via the exchange 11.

A case in which the personal computer 18 outputs audio in this system will be described below.

First, the main control section 17 of the voice response device 19 sends the address data of the PCM voice corresponding to the response to the personal computer control section 16, and the control section 16 sends the data type (
For example, address data assigned with a flag (image information or audio information) is transmitted to the personal computer 18 via the exchange 11.

On the personal computer 18 side, it is determined whether the data received by the control circuit 3 is display data on the display section 2 or audio output data to the audio output controller 6, and in the case of audio output, address information is sent to the audio output controller 6. Send to 6. The audio output control unit 6 reads the corresponding PCM audio data from the audio memory 7 based on the received address data. These series of operations will be described as the operations of the audio output section of FIG. 2 mentioned above. As shown in FIG. 6, the control circuit 3 determines whether or not the received data is audio data using the flag; In the case of audio data, the audio address is extracted from the second most significant byte of the data, and after setting the audio address information in the audio address register 22 shown in Figure 2, the address counter 22 shown in Figure 2 is reset and started. call, start the audio output, and wait for the audio output to finish transmitting. When it is determined that the voice transmission has ended, a request is made to the voice response device 19 to transmit the next voice address, and other processing continues.

This allows a predetermined voice to be output based on the voice address information sent from the voice response device.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described above, according to the present invention, in a voice response system that connects a personal computer to a voice response device, by providing a voice memory or the like corresponding to voice data from the voice response device on the personal computer side, data can be reduced. For personal computer terminals in quantity,
It is possible to output audio, and by simultaneously performing screen processing and audio output processing on a personal computer, serviceability can be improved.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a diagram showing an embodiment of the voice response system according to the present invention, FIG. 2 is a diagram showing details of the voice output section, FIG. 3 is a diagram showing the configuration of the voice memory, and FIG. 4 is a memory address diagram. FIG. 5 is a diagram showing the configuration of the personal computer control section of the voice response device, and FIG. 6 is a diagram showing the control procedure for voice output. DESCRIPTION OF SYMBOLS 1...Keyboard, 2...Display section, 3...Control circuit, 4...Modem, 5...Switching section, 6...Audio output control circuit, 7...Audio memory, 8 ... demodulation circuit,
9... Speaker, 10... Telephone, 11... Exchange, Ru... Switching circuit, 13... Line monitoring circuit, 14
...Audio output section, 15...Modem, 16...Personal computer control section, 17...Main control section, 18
...Personal computer, 19...Voice response device, 20...Speech output unit. Agent Patent Attorney Tadashi Akimoto Actual Figure 3 Hi6--8 Pier) Figure 4 No. 1-Shi Figure 5 Mountain L2 Tsuvu Tsubakizuke-'' Figure 6 ReiN Old Example

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. In a voice response system in which a voice response device that responds by voice according to input information and a personal computer are connected via a line, voice addresses corresponding to a plurality of voices are transmitted to the personal computer via the line. 1. A voice response system comprising: a voice response device; a personal computer comprising a voice memory for storing voice data corresponding to the voice address; and means for outputting voice according to the voice data.