associated with a mystic or science fantasy creature such as sounds of breathing combined with an eerie, pseudo¬ random sequence of musical notes, and sounds representing the operation of a weapon. U.S. Patent No. 4,291,877 discloses a toy vehicle engine sound device for an electrical toy vehicle which device produces a sound of a running engine.

U.S. Patent No. 4,314,423 discloses a sound pro¬ ducing toy and more particularly a toy animal or object that has a sound emitting system therein.

U.S. Patent No. 4,318,245 discloses a vocalizing apparatus for use in a doll which has a synthesizer for producing speech sounds. This doll has a body with a pocket therein for receiving the vocalizing apparatus which has a self-contained battery and speaker therein.

The synthesizer is controlled by a digital controller having' a memory which stores information representing a vocabulary of infant-like sounds. Such sounds include crying sounds and happy infant sounds. The doll has a gravity activated switch to cause crying sounds which switch, when the doll is lying down will be closed and cause crying sounds, when the doll is upright (cuddled) will cause cooing sounds and when the doll is face down, will be open to deactivate the crying. The voice box and doll character utilizing same of: the present invention differ from the previously proposed sound emitting toys and vocalizing apparatus by providing in the voice box, a voice synthesizing microprocessor of simple design and construction which is programmed to produce, upon actuation, predetermined voice messages. In one specific embodiment of the doll character of thepresent invention, the specific message is a prayer such as a morning prayer, a mealtime prayer, and/or an eveningprayer.- SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION According to the invention there is provided a compact voice box sized to be easily held in one hand, said voice box comprising a casing, a speaker in said casing positioned to transmit voice sounds from one side of said casing, means on said casing permitting the voice sounds to be emitted from said speaker to the ambient environment, a voice synthesizing microprocessor mounted within said casing, a self-contained, regulated power supply means coupled to said microprocessor and said speaker, memory means mounted within said casing and coupled to said voice synthesizing microprocessor, control means coupled to or incorporated within said microprocessor and coupled to said memory means for causing selected voice phrases to be generated by said microprocessor and emitted by said speaker, and actuating means for actuating said control means to cause a voice message to be emitted from said speaker..

Further, according to the invention, there is provided a talking character doll comprising a doll figure of an animal, human or imaginary creature, said doll having a fabric body shell and stuffing material within said shell, a portion of said stuffing material being cut away to pro¬ vide a pocket, a voice box received in said pocket, said voice box including a casing, a speaker in said^"casing positioned to transmit voice sounds from one side of said casing, means on said casing permitting the voice sounds^' to be emitted from said speaker to the ambient environment, a voice synthesizing microprocessor mounted within said casing, self-contained power supply means in said casing coupled to said microprocessor and said speaker, memory means mounted within said casing and coupled to said voice synthesizing microprocessor, control means coupled to or incorporated within said microprocessor and coupled to said memory means for causing selected voice phrases to be generated by said microprocessor and emitted by said speaker, and actuating means for actuating saidcontrol means to cause a voice message to be emitted from said speaker.

0^" BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS Fig. 1 is a perspective view of the front side of a girl doll character of the present invention with por¬ tions broken away to show a pocket in the body of the doll which receives a voice box constructed in accordance with the teachings of the present invention.

Fig. 2 is a perspective view of the back side of the girl doll character with a zipper on the back side of a fabric shell of the doll in an open position and showing in exploded perspective the stuffing material in front of the box, the box and^'the stuffing material in back of the box.

Fig. 3 is a schematic circuit diagram of the voice box shown in Fig. 1.

Fig. 4 is a flow chart of the program stored in the voice synthesizing microprocessor shown in Fig. 3.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT Referring now to Fig. 1 there is illustrated therein a doll character 10 which, in the illustrated embo¬ diment is the character of a young girl. The young girl doll character 10 has a head 12, two arms 14 and 16, and two legs 18 and 20 extending from a body portion 22. The body portion 22 includes a fabric shell 24 and has a stuf¬ fing material 26, such as sponge rubber or other suitable material therein. A portion of the stuffing material 26 is cut away to provide a pocket 28 in which is received a voice box^' 30 made in accordance with the teachings of the present invention.

The voice box 30 includes a casing 32 having a front side 34 and a back side 36 (Fig. 2) . On the front side 34 is a grating 38 behind which is mounted a speaker 40 (Fig. 3) . To protect the voice box 30 and more parti¬ cularly the grating 38 and the speaker 40 within the voice box 30, while at the same time allowing a voice message to pass therethrough, a piece 42 of stuffing or cushion mat- erial 26 is inserted into the pocket 28 in front of the voice box 30 and behind front side 44 of the fabric shell 24.

The voice box casing 32 typically has a dimension of 3 inches by 2 inches by 3/4 inch. It will be apprecia- ted, of course, that depending upon the size of the compon¬ ents utilized, the casing 32 for the voice box 30 could be smaller or larger. It is contemplated, however, that the voice box will not be larger than a size which can be con¬ veniently held by hand, such as a 3 x 5 x 1 inch casing 32. As shown in Fig. 2, another piece 46 of stuffing or cushion material is received adjacent the back side 36 of the voice box 30 when it is received in the pocket 28. The pieces 42 and 46 of stuffing material protect the voice box 30 from being damaged. As shown in Fig. 2, the back side 36 of the voice box 30 has an easily removable plate 48 which is received over a cavity 50 in the voice box 30 adapted to receive a battery 52, such as a 9 volt battery, which forms part of a self-contained DC power supply within the voice box 30 as will be described in greater detail hereinafter in connection with the description of Figs. 3 and 4.

Once the piece 42 of material, the voice box 30, and the piece 46 of material are inserted into the pocket 28, a zipper 54 on the back side 56 of the fabric shell 24 can be pulled down to releasably lock the voice box 30 in place within the pocket 28. This enables the voice box

30 easily to be inserted or removed from the doll character 10 and permits laundering and washing of the doll character 10.

It will be appreciated that although a young girl doll character 10 is illustrated in Figs. 1 and 2 of the drawings the doll character 10 could take other forms, such as an animal doll character or an imaginary doll character such as an elf, wizard or dragon, etc.

Referring now to Fig. 3, there is illustrated therein electrical circuit 60 of the components mounted within the voice box 30. As•shown, the circuit 60 includes a voice synthesizing microprocessor 62 which can be a National Semiconductor Speech Processor part number . MM54104. Alternatively, the microprocessor 62 can be a^* Texas Instrument TMS 5100 series Voice Synthesis Processor. Coupled to the microprocessor 62 by an address bus 64 and a data bus 66 is a memory 68 which can be a speech ROM manufactured by National Semiconductor under part number MM52164. Typically, this ROM has 128 memory capacity.

Alternatively, the memory 68 can be a Texas inst¬ rument TMS 6100 series memory which is typically a 128K mask program ROM.

In the circuit 60 utilizing a National Semicon- ductor Speech Processor 62, programmed control circuitry is mounted within the speech processor 62. In a Texas Instrument system, a phrase select circuit might be inserted between the voice synthesize processor 62 and the memory 68.

The microprocessor 62 is supplied with a clock signal from a crystal oscillator clock circuit 70 and is supplied with a regulated DC voltage via a regulator 72 having an input coupled to the battery 52 (Fig. 1) , and an output coupled to the V So input of the microprocessor

62. Unregulated DC voltage is also supplied to input V of the microprocessor 62.

As shown, regulated voltage from the regulator 72 is also supplied to the memory 68.

The circuit 60 also includes an actuating- circuit 74 comprising two ganged single pole single throw switches 76 and 78. One pole 30 of one of the switches 76 is con- nected to one input WR .of the microprocessor 62 and one pole 82 of the other switch 78 is connected to another input of the microprocessor 62. These poles 80 and 82 of the switches 76 and 78 are normally spring biased to system common. When actuated momentarily, such as by pushing a button, the poles 80 and 82 are connected to the DC voltage thereby to change the inputs to the microproc¬ essor 62 from logic 0 to logic 1. This is only momentary because the switch is spring biased to the system common (or ground) connected pole position of the switches 76 and 78.

An output 84 of the microprocessor 62 is connected to a filter and amplifier circuit 86 which in turn has an output 88 coupled to the speaker 40.

In a system utilizing Texas Instrument components, i is contemplated that between the actuating switch and the microprocessor a control ROM will be inserted for facilitating control of the microprocessor 62.

It will be appreciated that other types of actua¬ ting mechanisms can be used besides the spring biased two ganged single pole single throw switches 76 and 78 shown in Fig. 3. Also, it is to be understood that the actual switching can be effected by movement of a part of the doll character 10, such as by movement of an arm 14, the head 12, a leg 18, etc., or by a gravity operated switch which can be operated by the position of the doll charac- ter 10.

The voice synthesizing microprocessor 62 is pro¬ grammed to be operated upon actuation of the switches 76, 78 and a brief description of the protocol or procedure followed by the program stored in the microprocessor 62 to cause a voice message to be emitted from the speaker

40 of the voice box 30 in the doll character 10 is descri¬ bed as follows with reference to the flow chart shown in Fig. 4.

Step 1. The first step is a manual step which is the actuation of the two ganged single pole single throw switches 76 and 73 by pressing a button.

Step 2. Once the logic inputs to the microproc¬ essor 62 are changed from logic 0 to logic 1, the program is initiated and performs general housekeeping tasks. Step 3. Once the housekeeping, etc. has been completed, the microprocessor 62 asks the speech ROM 68 what is the address for certain sounds required to produce a predetermined voice message to be generated by the voice synthesizing microprocessor 62. Step 4. Here the ROM 68 supplies the address to the synthesizer in the voice synthesizing microprocessor 62 which then selects the requested syllable (vowel) sounds and consonant sounds.

Step 5. Here the microprocessor 62 makes certain that the output of the sounds is controlled, in particular, the duration of the sound and the spacing between the sounds is controlled.

Step 6. Once the control of the output of sound has been carried out by the microprocessor 62, a timed and controlled analog output signal is outputted from the microprocessor 62 and supplied to the filter and amplifier circuit 86. 9 Step 7. Here the analog signal is converted in the speaker 40 to a voice sound and such sound for a part of the voice message is emitted from the speaker 40.

Once all the voice sounds for the voice message have been emitted by the speaker 40, the program is ended and the microprocessor 62 returns to its quiescent state. The microprocessor 62 and memory 68 are capable of storing and reproducing approximately 400 words. Also, the voice message can be one long message or a plurality of shorter messages, and the shorter messages can be separately/independently and sequentially recalled from the memory 68 and emitted from the speaker 40. In other words, the program in the microprocessor 62 will only cause generation of one of the voice messages when the voice box 30 is actuated and will not. produce the subse¬ quent message stored in the memory 68 until the voice box 30 is actuated again.

In one preferred embodiment, the voice message is a prayer. More specifically, in a preferred embodi- ment of the doll character 10, three prayers are stored in the memory or speech ROM 68, one prayer being a morn¬ ing prayer, one prayer being a mealtime prayer and one prayer being an evening prayer. These prayers read as follows: Morning Prayer

Now I wake to the morning light God's love was with me through the night So before I run to play Let me not forget to pray Teach me to be thankful Lord

In everything I do For all the things I call my own

Are really gifts from You. Look down, O Father from above Bless me with Your endless love^*.

Amen

OMPI Mealtime Prayer

Now I bow my head and pray To thank You for this food today Andthank You too that I may be Here with all my family.

For these gifts sent from above Let us always show You love So come Lord Jesus, be our Guest And let Thy gifts to us be blessed. Amen

Evening Prayer

Now it's time to go to bed I kneel to pray and bow my head Jesus loves me, this I know For the Bible tells me so

Watch me from Your home above Wake me with Your Father's love God Bless Mommy and Daddy and make me a good girl. Amen

As stated -above, other types of doll characters can be provided in addition to a young girl doll charac¬ ter 10. Also, other types of voice messages can be recor¬ ded in the microprocessor system such as a story of the character represented by the doll.

The voice sounds in the microprocessor 62 are that of a young girl's voice and if another type of doll character is to be used, then different voice sounds will be programmed in the voice synthesizing microprocessor 62. Also, as shown in Fig. 3, the connection of the memory 68 can be through jacks 91-94 (shown schematically) which permit alternative or multiple memories to be cou¬ pled to the microprocessor 62.

From the foregoing description it will be appar- ent that the voice box 30 and the doll character 10 utili¬ zing same of the present invention provide a number of advantages, some of which^' have been described above and 11 others of which are inherent in the invention. Also it is apparent that many modifications can be made to the voice.box and doll character of the present invention without departing from the teachings of the present invention.

Accordingly, the scope of the invention is only to be limited as necessitated by the accompanying claims.

I

Claims

CLAIMS We Claim:

1. A compact voice box sized to be easily held in one hand, said voice box comprising a casing, a speaker in said casing positioned to transmit voice sounds from one

•5 side of said casing, means on said casing permitting the voice sounds to be emitted from said speaker to the ambient environment, a voice synthesizing microprocessor mounted within said casing, self-contained, regulated power supply means coupled to said microprocessor and said speaker, 0 memory means mounted within said casing and coupled to said voice synthesizing microprocessor, control means coupled to or incorporated within said microprocessor and coupled to said memory means for causing selected voice phrases to be generated by said microprocessor and emitted by said speaker, 5 and actuating means for actuating said control means to cause a voice message to be emitted from said speaker.

2. The voice box of claim 1 wherein said voice synthesizing microprocessor is a speech microprocessor, said memory means include a speech ROM coupled by an address 0 bus and data bus to said speech microprocessor.

3. The voice box of claim 2 including a crystal oscillator clock circuit coupled to said speech micropro¬ cessor.

4. The voice box of claim 1 including filter and 5 amplifying circuit means coupled between the output of said voice synthesizing microprocessor and said speaker.

5. The voice box of claim 1 wherein said actua¬ ting means include at least one spring biased switch which

" is normally coupled to ground (logic 0) and is adapted to be 0 momentarily closed so as to be connected to said power supply means (logic 1) , said at least one switch being coupled to an input of said microprocessor and when closed, being operable to actuate same to cause a predetermined

5 voice message stored in said memory means to be outputted by said speech microprocessor to said speaker.

6. The voice box of claim 1 wherein said memory means have a capacity capable of storing a program for causing the reproduction of approximately 400 words by said voice synthesizing microprocessor.

7. The voice box of claim 1 wherein said voice synthesizing microprocessor is programmed to perform, when actuated, the following functions: (a) general^' housekeeping, (b) to ask said memory for the address for certain sounds, (σ) upon receiving the address from said memory to select syllable (vowel) sounds and consonant sounds, (d) to control the output of the sound, the duration of the sound, and the spacing between the sounds, (e) to generate a timed and controlled analog output signal related to the sound, duration of sound and spacing between the sounds, and (f) to supply said analog signal to said speaker thereby to produce a voice message from said speaker. 8. The voice box of claim 1 wherein said casing is approximately 2 inches by 3 inches by 3/4 inch.

9. A talking character doll comprising a doll, figure of an animal, human or imaginary creature, said doll having a f bric body shell and stuffing material within said shell, a portion of said stuffing material being cut away to provide a pocket, a voice box received in said pocket, said voice box including a casing, a speaker in said casing positioned to transmit voice sounds from one side of said casing, means on said casing permitting the voice sounds to be emitted from said speaker to the ambient environment, a voice synthesizing microprocessor mounted within said casing, self-contained power supply means in said casing coupled to said microprocessor and said speaker, memory means mounted within said casing and coupled to said voice synthesizing microprocessor, control means coupled to or incorporated within said microprocessor and coupled to said memory 14 means for causing selected voice phrases to be gener¬ ated by said microprocessor and emitted by said speaker, and actuating means for actuating said control means to cause a voice message to be emitted from said speaker.

10. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said voice synthesizing microprocessor is a speech micro¬ processor, and said memory means include a speech ROM coupled by an address bus and data bus to said speech microprocessor.

11. The doll character of claim 10 including a crystal oscillator clock circuit coupled to said speech microprocessor.

13. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said actuating means include at least one spring biased switch which is normally coupled to ground (logic 0) and is adapted to. be momentarily closed so as to be connected to said power supply means (logic 1) , said at least one switch being coupled to an input of said micro- processor and when closed, being operable to actuate same to cause a predetermined voice message stored in said memory means to be outputted by said microprocessor to said speaker.

14. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said means for permitting a voice to be emitted from said speaker includes a grating on said one side of said casing.

15. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said voice box has said speaker mounted on a front side thereof which is adapted to be positioned to face the inside of the front of said fabric shell of said doll character.

16. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said actuating means are mounted on a back side of said cas- ing so as to be accessible from the back side of the doll character. 17. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said actuating means are coupled to a part of said doll character such that manipulation or movement of said part of said doll character will activate said actua- ting means to cause- said voice box to emit a predeter¬ mined voice message from said speaker.

18. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said pocket in said doll is provided with stuffing/cushion means between the front side of said fabric shell and said pocket, said stuffing/cushion means enabling a voice to be transmitted therethrough while at the same time protecting the voice box and speaker from being inadvertently damaged.

19. The doll character of claim 18 including a piece of stuffing material which is received in said pocket over the back side of said voice box.

20. The doll character of claim 19 wherein said fabric shell of said doll character has a zipper therein extending over said pocket in said stuffing material on the back side of said doll for facilitating inser¬ tion and/or removal of said voice box from said pocket.

21. The doll character of claim 9 being a young girl doll character and wherein said voice synthesizing microprocessor has a young girl's voice sounds stored therein.

22. The doll character of claim 21 wherein said memory means has stored therein a program for generating a prayer.

23. The doll character of claim 22 wherein said prayer is a morning prayer.

24. The doll character of claim 23 wherein said morning prayer reads as follows:

Now I wake to the morning light God's love was with me through the night So before I run to play

Let me not forget to pray

OMPI Teach me to be thankful Lord

In everything I do For all the things I call my own Are really gifts from You. Look down, 0 Father from above

Bless me with Your endless love.

Amen. 25. The doll character of claim 22 wherein said prayer is an evening prayer. 26. The doll character of claim 25 wherein said evening prayer reads as follows:

Now it's time to go -to bed I kneel to pray and bow my head Jesus loves me, this I know For the Bible tells me so

Watch me from Your home above Wake me with Your Father*s love God Bless Mommy and Daddy and make me a good girl. Amen.

27. The doll character of claim 22 wherein said prayer is a mealtime prayer.

28. The doll character of claim 27 wherein said mealtime prayer is as follows: Now I bow my head and pray

To thank You for this food today And thank You too that I may be Here with all my family For these are gifts sent from above Let us always show You love

So come Lord Jesus, be our Guest And let Thy gifts to us be blessed.

Amen.

29. The doll character of claim 22 wherein said memory means are programmed to reproduce separately and sequentially three prayers, one being a morning prayer, one being a mealtime prayer, and one being an evening prayer. 30. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said memory means are capable of storing a program for causing the reproduction of approximately 400 words by said voice synthesizing microprocessor. 31. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said memory means are programmed to store a program which, when said voice box is actuated, will cause said voice box to produce a story about the character represented by the doll. 32. The doll character of claim 9 wherein said voice synthesizing microprocessor is programmed to per¬ form, when actuated, the following functions: (a) general housekeeping, (b) to ask said memory for the address for certain^"sounds, (c) upon receiving the address from said_, memory to select syllable (vowel) sounds and consonant sounds, (d) to control the output of the sound, the duration of the sound, and the spacing between the sounds, (e) to generate a timed and controlled analog output signal related to the sound, duration of sound and spacing between the sounds and (f) to supply said analog signal to said speaker thereby to produce a voice mes¬ sage from said speaker.