Halcyon was intended to have a voice much like the Hal 9000, but memory constraints prohibited the use of tailored speech parameters for the Votrax synthesizer that was built into the console. The compromise was to use a licensed text-to-speech algorithm that had several built-in rules for pronouncing English text properly. For speech the console made that the algorithm did not pronounce acceptably, special spelling was incorporated into the source text of words and phrases to correct for these problems. This would not correct the words (user names, primarily) that were typed into the Halcyon when a player first began playing the game.