Info on a Voice Synthesizer that worked off of simulated Larynx shapes?

Factual Questions
1

I was just wondering if someone could help me find some information on a machine I saw on “Beyond 2000,” a few years back. Apparently, a researcher in Japan (I think it was Japan…) developed a program into which you entered measurements of a human’s throat and skull, and the program then would then produce a computer-modeled a Larynx based on said measurements, and use it to simulate what the subject’s voice sounded like. The researcher demonstrated the synthesized voice of the Mona Lisa, and even a simulated growl from a Tyrannosaurus…which the documentary claimed the Steven Spielberg was going to use in the (then) upcoming movie “The Lost World: Jurassic Park II.”

Can anyone tell me where I can find out more about this system, if it is all it’s cracked up to be?

Ranchoth

2

Old stuff, really.

AT&T’s Bell Labs was working with computer modeling of human speech a couple decades ago.

I’d love to toss up some cites, but this was pre-web, making it hard to find anything from here.

I did manage to dig up that they’ve been electronically synthesizing speech at Bell Labs since 1939.

3

Oops… forgot to add that I tried looking at Beyond 2000’s website, but it’s down at the moment.