TO HEAR IS TO OBEY WITH MICRO COMMAND

Speech recognition is a growing area of interest and the new Micro Command from Orion Data looks set to help. It is supplied with a microphone and a demonstration tape which allows Spectrum users to teach their computers up to 15 words and then to have words recognised when repeated.

Users of 48K will also be able to play Sheeptalk, a game where the dog is controlled by spoken commands.

Normally, speech recognition for a computer is very expensive; a look inside Micro Command shows why. It contains a Z-80A CPU, as used in the Spectrum, ROM and RAM, buffers and audio circuitry.

The demonstration tape takes you through the process of learning to use the unit in easy stages. Starting with up and down and then adding left and right it allows you to continue only if you score more than 80 percent. You must pronounce each word very carefully. Once past that stage you can play Sheeptalk. The game, produced originally by Virgin Games, is in Basic and hence fairly slow. It shows the limitations of the unit, as it is difficult to keep the same careful tone when the dog starts driving the sheep into the river.

Included with Micro Command are comprehensive instructions for its use, plus an additional information booklet which lists the basic teaching program and a disassembly of the machine code which is used. It also gives details of the variables used by the code and shows how to include Micro Command in your programs.

Micro Command costs £49.95. That may seem expensive to Spectrum users but considering its contents, the work which must have gone into it, and the price of other similar units, it is reasonable. Orion Data is at 3, Cavendish Street, Brighton, East Sussex BN2 1RN. Tel: 0273-672994.

COMMANDING

MICRO: Spectrum 48K
PRICE: £49.95
SUPPLIER: Orion Data Ltd, 3 Cavendish St, Brighton, East Sussex

As befits a magazine called Micro Adventurer, getting this product set up and working properly was an adventure in itself. Was it my fault that the mistakes attributed to the Micro Command cartridge were in fact due to my ageing Spectrum deciding that it wanted to meet the great chip maker in the sky?

With a working Spectrum Micro Command worked a treat. This unique product comes in the form of a cartridge, which you connect up to the back of the Spectrum via its edge connector. Into this cartridge you have to insert a supplied microphone, and with the aid of a few simple commands your Spectrum is then able to respond to voice as well as keyboard input.

A demonstration cassette comes with the package, and the first program on this tape is designed to get the machine used to the sound of your voice. When prompted, you have to say the words Up, Down, Left, Right and Stop into the microphone, and the accompanying program then decides how well it can understand you.

When you've convinced the machine of your ability to speak English (and it responded quite happily to Kentish, Lancastrian and Devonian accents) you can then proceed to play a simple game using the aforementioned five words.

This is a version of Sheepwalk, where you have to guide a sheepdog around a field and make him herd a number of sheep into a pen. The kindest thing that can be said about this program is that Micro Command deserves to sell well in spite of it.

Ignoring the game however, the power of this package comes from being able to teach it to accept a number of your own words. Up to 15 words (or for that matter sounds) can be programmed into the cartridge, and with the aid of a few more programs on the supplied cassette you can get the unit to respond with a number for each word you said into it. Thus if word one happened to be FIRE, whenever you said that word into the microphone the unit would set the appropriate variable to equal 1.

You can picture the confusion. A fast, all-action arcade game has you merrily shouting 'FIRE! FIRE!' into the microphone, the neighbours hear your apparent pleas for help, and the next thing you know is that the local fire brigade are happily drenching you and your house with gallons of water.

It would make a useful addition to any adventure game, although you would have to put up with a rather limited vocabulary. Thus in the Hobbit, say, one could literally talk to Elrond and get free lunches out of him all day.

An interesting product then, with a wide range of possible applications. It remains to be seen how many software companies (or individuals) realise the possibilities which Orion Data has presented them.