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Post by retrobits on Mar 9, 2009 16:28:58 GMT -5
Hi All,
I've never done an episode on speech synthesizers, and I'm thinking about covering the topic. There were some cool hardware and software models - "S.A.M." (Software Automated Mouth), the original Votrax RS232 unit, the TI 99/4 cartridge being discussed in an adjacent thread, and of course (while not a computer) the infamous "Speak And Spell".
Do you have a favorite speech synthesizer? What are your memories?
As a side note, I'm wondering what people tended to use on the Commodore 64 - I haven't explored much with speech on that system.
- Earl
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ogma
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Post by ogma on Mar 9, 2009 17:03:59 GMT -5
Wow, we had a Votrax hooked up to our Atari when I was growing up and I also experimented with SAM quite a bit, as well.
Those aside, I am still very impressed by the sounds coming out of this TI-99/4A Speech Synth. Male and Female both sound great!
Anyway, great idea for a show, but will you be able to have some examples of each for us to hear???
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Post by miner2049er on Mar 9, 2009 18:31:45 GMT -5
I would spend hours making my Amiga speak. Workbench had a utility called "say" on it and obviously whatever you typed in would be read back to you.
It would speak phonetically though so if we wanted it to say my friends name Sean, we would have to spell it "shorn" but we would have even more fun with it when we were drunk and made it swear.
Well, we were young adolescents. LOL.
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Post by David Murray on Mar 10, 2009 7:12:14 GMT -5
Do you have a favorite speech synthesizer? What are your memories? I've always felt that the retrobits should include more sound bites from whatever is being reviewed in order to keep it interesting. As it is, I only recall a very few and they were poorly implimented. ("Okay, I'm going to play this for you now..... here it comes....") The synthesizers would be a good opportunity to change that. I always used SAM on my C64 but a friend of mine did have some kind of cartridge that plugged into the cartridge port and then had a cable that plugged into the monitor port for the SID pass-through. It sounded pretty good. Of course, as already mentioned the Amiga has a synth out of the box. So did the Mac, if I recall. It might be cool to add a few clips from the old Wargames movie. If you need, I have the entire movie on .AVI and can cut some clips out and make them into WAV or MP3 files for you to edit in.
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Post by relayer on Mar 10, 2009 7:14:15 GMT -5
Hearsay 1000 It was a speech synthesizer for the C64 and it had voice recognition. You could program it to respond to your voice to run commands. That part of it was a little hokey, but it demonstrated potential. That's not to be confused with the Heresy 1000, based on 11th century religious cultures speaking and telling YOU what do to.
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ogma
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Post by ogma on Mar 10, 2009 10:04:37 GMT -5
I've always felt that the retrobits should include more sound bites from whatever is being reviewed in order to keep it interesting. As it is, I only recall a very few and they were poorly implimented. ("Okay, I'm going to play this for you now..... here it comes....") I tend to agree, but only about there needing to be MORE sound bites, not about things being "poorly implemented" (I disagree with that comment)! One of my absolute favorite Retrobits episodes is the one where Joshua plays 'Star Raiders.' I love all the episodes regardless, but this sort of "added value" really makes the show a lot more interesting and entertaining!
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Post by mika73 on Mar 10, 2009 12:33:23 GMT -5
At 80´s we used mostly SAM with C64. But I think that my todays favourite is TI-99/4A speecy synth. At C64 my first experience of speech was Ghostbusters game.. It did really blow mind of Vic20 user.. You know that feeling.. I have to get that, I have to move on.. (Same happend later with A1000) For some reason I dont remember Amiga games that had speech.. There was speech synth program with A1000,but games I dont remember any.. Always remember C64 games Ghostbusters, Beach Head II and Transformers (Disc B side demo). Also have two speech cartridges for Vic20. But I dont know any game/program that did use those.. Its pity.. There was Magic Voice cartridge for C64.. You could get speech to games Wizard Of Wor and Gorf (cartridges). Also if you wanna get good laugh, try any of those programs that make C64 sing..
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Post by thurstan on Mar 10, 2009 15:44:47 GMT -5
On the Amstrad CPC we had the official Amstrad one or the more popular DK'Tronics speech synthesizer. You had to run a program to get it to say what you typed in or it would speak any displayed text on a game like game over or player 1 get ready sort of things. just plugged in the expansion port and off you go!
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Post by mika73 on Mar 10, 2009 16:12:30 GMT -5
Also ZX Spectrum had speech expander cartridge.
Wonder if more rare home computers had any speech carts..
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Post by retrobits on Mar 10, 2009 18:50:54 GMT -5
As I recall, the voice for WOPR (the supercomputer in the movie) is voiced by a real person via some electronics effects. It is not, in fact, an actual speech synthesizer, although it's certainly the most famous fictional representation of one.
Well, guess I'll have to fire the production crew.
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Post by stephenphill on Mar 10, 2009 20:03:36 GMT -5
As a side note, I'm wondering what people tended to use on the Commodore 64 - I haven't explored much with speech on that system. In the 90's I watched for people selling their old C64 collections and bought 2 or 3 just for the novelty of seeing what other people had. One came with the "VOICE BOX Speech Synthesizer" by the ALIEN Group. It was a little box that plugged into the user port and had a tiny (tinny) speaker and two knobs to control pitch and volume. It came with a manual, a test program, and some kind of basic extensions so you could add speech to basic programs. The test program was all I ever used and it would say words and then wait for you to type them in. There was one word that I could never understand what it was saying, no matter how many times I listened to it or how I adjusted the pitch knob. It was fun to play with for a week but not that great. A google search now finds one on E-bay ( for Atari though ) and my 1995 comp.sys.cbm posting selling mine after I had tired of it.
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ogma
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Post by ogma on Mar 10, 2009 21:03:51 GMT -5
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Post by Jim Brain on Mar 10, 2009 22:04:34 GMT -5
A few weeks back, there was a link in comp.sys.cbm of a gentleman who created a program that sounds like SAM but runs on a Windows or Linux PC. Very impressive.
Jim
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Post by twilitezoner on Mar 23, 2009 11:53:04 GMT -5
As a side note, I'm wondering what people tended to use on the Commodore 64 - I haven't explored much with speech on that system. In the 90's I watched for people selling their old C64 collections and bought 2 or 3 just for the novelty of seeing what other people had. One came with the "VOICE BOX Speech Synthesizer" by the ALIEN Group. It was a little box that plugged into the user port and had a tiny (tinny) speaker and two knobs to control pitch and volume. It came with a manual, a test program, and some kind of basic extensions so you could add speech to basic programs. The test program was all I ever used and it would say words and then wait for you to type them in. There was one word that I could never understand what it was saying, no matter how many times I listened to it or how I adjusted the pitch knob. It was fun to play with for a week but not that great. A google search now finds one on E-bay ( for Atari though ) and my 1995 comp.sys.cbm posting selling mine after I had tired of it. They don't show up on ebay often. I always wanted one for the Atari.
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Post by aragon on Apr 9, 2009 8:09:21 GMT -5
Hi Earl, a few weeks ago I was thinking about doing a podcast for retrobits on this very subject ;D I started collecting various interesting material, but so far I did not take the time to properly organize it and make a draft for a podcast. Nevertheless, I would like to contribute my findings. Give me a few days to sift through the material again, I will send you a mail with the details. My fascination with talking machines goes back to the TI Speak&Spell, which a friend brought returning from the US to my little hometown in Germany... Later, SAM on the C64 and the narrator.device on my Amiga kept me going. I still think there's a certain charm to those synthesized voices. Let's dig up some of the history and share our memories. [UPDATE] Here are just a few more links to some interesting stuff... www.synthtopia.com/content/2009/02/06/voder-speech-synthesizer/www.youtube.com/watch?v=YwfcOLXAMnwwww.zimmers.net/cbmpics/cv364.html
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