16 Aug
2008
16 Aug
'08
11:43 a.m.
Back in the early 80's, I remember that something I wanted very badly
was a product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell
with, and use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked on
other platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
Al
Phila, PA
16 Aug
16 Aug
11:58 a.m.
On 16 Aug 2008 at 11:43, Al Hartman wrote:
Back in the early 80's, I remember that something
I wanted very badly
was a product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell
with, and use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked on
other platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
Only vaguely--but I don't remember the TRS-80 connection, though that
might have been the case. A friend actually bought a S&S to do this
with, but never got around to modding it. There was also at least
one magazine article describing the internals of the thing.
File that one in the same category as using an Etch-a-Sketch as a
plotter.
I never got over the CompuTalker, myself.
Cheers,
Chuck
12:40 p.m.
Al Hartman wrote:
Back in the early 80's, I remember that something
I wanted very badly
was a product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell
with, and use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked
on other platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
Al
Phila, PA
I thought Radio Shack (US) also sold voice roms to go with some Archer
project stuff
in the 70's.
2:14 p.m.
On 16 Aug 2008 at 10:40, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca wrote:
I thought Radio Shack (US) also sold voice roms to go
with some Archer
project stuff
in the 70's.
Yup, they did, as well as the TI sound effects chip. Of course, this
was also back in the day of the short-lived "Front passenger door is
ajar" voice eminating from the bowels of your auto.
That was a solution in search of a problem, if there ever was one.
Cheers,
Chuck
3:23 p.m.
For quick and easy speech I still think the Votrax SC-01 ( datasheets link
below );
http://www.franweb.com/Other_Pages/electronics/votrax.htm
is the best bet. We used an Apple II with a dirt simple interface running
FORTH to set up a speech demo for an open house at Hughes. All you have to
do is send a Byte to generate a phoneme and the SC-01 tells you ( not
literally but through a handshake pin ) when to send the next Byte. You can
even do limited Spanish and other languages that use similar sounds ( forget
about Urdu ). You could do Esperanto but nobody speaks it....
Best regards, Steven
On 16 Aug 2008 at 10:40, bfranchuk at jetnet.ab.ca
wrote:
I thought Radio Shack (US) also sold voice roms
to go with some Archer
project stuff
in the 70's.
Yup, they did, as well as the TI sound effects chip. Of course, this
was also back in the day of the short-lived "Front passenger door is
ajar" voice eminating from the bowels of your auto.
That was a solution in search of a problem, if there ever was one.
Cheers,
Chuck
17 Aug
17 Aug
3 a.m.
New subject: Speak and Swear
Little known ( I think... ) Speak & Spell trivia fact; The very first
original S & Ss ( circa 1978 ?? ) with the hard molded buttons had swear
words that the programmers had sneaked into the voice code ROMs. On mine you
could access these by selecting the module ( with no ROM module plugged in )
and select level D. It would then say " Spell .... a bunch of garbage words,
and then swear words" at the end . I have a .wav and an MP3 example of this
little S & S Easter Egg... TI found out ( of course ) and recalled as many
units as they could. If you can find one now they are quite rare and very
entertaining. A special ed teacher I know used S & Ss to help her kids and
was wondering why they kept laughing uncontrollably. They had figured out
how to access the "special" words ....
Best regards, Steven
16 Aug
16 Aug
12:54 p.m.
New subject: Speak and Spell interface
Al,
There is an article here;
http://members.tripod.com/werdav/speakell.html
for interfacing a S & S to a Sinclair or Timex computer. No reason you
couldn't use any other computer. Hardest part is figuring out where the
words start in the ROM so the LPC doesn't get screwed up. Good luck.
Best regards, Steven
Back in the early 80's, I remember that something
I wanted very badly
was a product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell
with, and use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked on
other platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
Al
Phila, PA
7:28 p.m.
New subject: Speak and Spell interface
Al,
At the bottom of the article in the link below they talk about a product
called a " Speak-2-Me-2 " board which connects a TRS-80 to a Speak-N-Spell.
Is this what you were looking for below ?
Best regards, Steven
Al,
There is an article here;
http://members.tripod.com/werdav/speakell.html
for interfacing a S & S to a Sinclair or Timex computer. No reason you
couldn't use any other computer. Hardest part is figuring out where the
words start in the ROM so the LPC doesn't get screwed up. Good luck.
Best regards, Steven
Back in the early 80's, I remember that
something I wanted very badly
was a product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell
with, and use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked on
other platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
Al
Phila, PA
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1:43 p.m.
On Sat, 16 Aug 2008, Al Hartman wrote:
Back in the early 80's, I remember that something
I wanted very badly was a
product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell with, and
use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked on other
platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
I do, and I picked up a Speak and Spell to build the interface for my
TRS-80 Model 4. Never did get it to work, though. I still have the
article around, somewhere. Still have the Speak and Spell, too. :-)
Mike Loewen mloewen at cpumagic.scol.pa.us
Old Technology http://sturgeon.css.psu.edu/~mloewen/Oldtech/
6:10 p.m.
On Sat, 16 Aug 2008, Al Hartman wrote:
Back in the early 80's, I remember that something
I wanted very badly
was a product someone was selling that you could mod a Speak and Spell
with, and use it as a voice synthesiser for a computer.
I know it was out for the TRS-80. But, I don't remember if it worked on
other platforms. It must, I would think.
Anyone else remember this?
There were several interfaces available.
Percom sold one.
Did Ciarcia write about one?
5826
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alexandre-listas＠e-secure.com.br -
alhartman＠yahoo.com -
bfranchuk＠jetnet.ab.ca -
cclist＠sydex.com -
cisin＠xenosoft.com -
mloewen＠cpumagic.scol.pa.us -
steven.alan.canning＠verizon.net