Jump to content
IGNORED

Things to do with S.A.M.


Kyle22

Recommended Posts

Now that we have the awesome Z: handler in the BIOS, it makes it easy to write a S.A.M. alarm clock. How about some more interesting things like a Dalek saying "ex-ter-min-ate"? I would love to see S.A.M. disassembled and the code tweaked by some of our brilliant coders. Imagine S.A.M. as an SDX driver that loads to an Ext. RAM bank. Lots of possibilities there. At least I think so. I'm just throwing this idea out there in hopes that it may spark a future project.

 

Anyway, try this:

 

dim sam$(255)

poke 8209,55 : rem pitch

sam$="eh5ksteh2er mih1n ae1eh2eh3tq" : rem exterminate

a=usr(8192)

 

I'm using SAM with OS/A+ and Altirra BASIC. To use, load DOS 2.x or OS/A+, load the SAM binary, enter BASIC and type the above (in upper case).

 

There is good info on S.A.M. here: http://www.retrobits.net/atari/sam.shtml#ch3.0

 

Post back here if you create any good stuff. Also, the Dalek would sound more authentic if it were possible to play with the hi-pass filters. I'm not sure if they apply to the mode that S.A.M. uses, but we would need the source to try it.

 

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think it would be nice to have S.A.M. doing the narration to a video to update newbies (and those new to Atari) of what was the best on the Atari to say around 1990 - which many may consider to be the end of the 8-bit era - by which time 16-bit was firmly established - then an update as to what has happened since then? Say the hardware developments that has gone on, and what software has appeared since, worth taking note of.


Probably finishing with unfinished projects - that will hopefully end up being completed or near completed.



Harvey


  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I loved playing with S.A.M.! I did a middle school project with a friend where we had to create a project on cassette tape. We used S.A.M. for speech and I created sound effects in Basic. Mixed it all together with my dual cassette boombox. If I ever come across that tape, I'll post it. ?

 

Also, right around that same time period, I wired the audio out of my 1200xl into a telephone. Another friend and me would make prank calls. We would have text typed up already and when the call was answered S.A.M. would start talking away. Good thing caller id didn't exist back then... :)

  • Like 3
Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know there is a certain nostalgia and "back in thre day" feel to using the old speach hardware or a software simultion like this, but voice synthesesis is so rarely used nowadays, I guess, partly because much of it approaches the "uncanny valley" level or is just considered creepy or inhuman to many, and if need be, having digitized ,actual speech, with today's storage/compression capabilities, more or less renders it obsolete. Most of them are relagated to those who wish or need to have it to augment their abilty to communicate with others. There might be some social considerations in whether one should use the systems, if one doesn't have a disabilty, as it might tend to unconsciouslessly distract from those who have a true need.

 

Still, something like the 8-bits, must be capable of driving, be interfaceable or at least be able to have their output signal interpreted in such a way as to drive some of the more modern devices or systems. Or the older systems night be modifiable to playback the higher-resolution and more complexly inflected sample-sets that are available, now. Voices that sound like different people, with characters of their own, not just the inherent one created by the output being barely recognizable. ;)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

This sounds cool :) Is there a simple example of using this? Perhaps a few lines of Basic.

 

- Michael

 

10 dim sam$(255)

20 sam=8192

30 open#1,4,0,"Z:"

40 xio 33,#1,0,0,"Z:"

50 get#1,h:get#1,m:rem hours and minutes

60 close #1

70 if h=9 and m=30 then goto 100

80 goto 30

100 sam$="/heh3y. wey4k ah4p. ih4ts nay4n ther4tiy. yuw4ll biyy ley3t foh4r wer4k."

110 a=usr(sam)

120 for a=1 to 3:print chr$(253):next a

130 goto 110

 

Hit Break to stop.

  • Like 2
Link to comment
Share on other sites

At a guess my classic Atari interest was from 1981-1985....so I'm reading this thread, thinking what the heck is a Z: handler? LOL, but I did look it up. You could address ICD's R-Time-8 cartridge as a Z: device, and in doing so it make it easy to get Time and Date information from the cartridge in the Basic environment.

 

There was a lot going in in the late 80's, let alone in the modern era, to catch up on. Even SAM, despite being a 1982 release, I had never heard of it.

 

Interestingly enough, here http://simulationcorner.net/index.php?page=samsomeone disassembled the C64 version and ported it to C/Windows.

 

The cool thing about the project is they talk about how it works.

 

https://github.com/s-macke/SAM

 

 

Except of some special phonemes the output is build by a linear combination:

A = A1 * sin ( f1 * t ) +
A2 * sin ( f2 * t ) +
A3 * rect( f3 * t )

where rect is a rectangular function with the same periodicity like sin. It seems really strange, but this is really enough for most types of phonemes.

Therefore the above phonemes are converted with some tables to pitches[] frequency1[] = f1 frequency2[] = f2 frequency3[] = f3 amplitude1[] = A1 amplitude2[] = A2 amplitude3[] =

 

 

It really is quite interesting, however....one problem, the speech is quite bad.

 

I know, it would've been great in 1982, of course.

  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

There were software speech synthesizers on many 8 bit platforms.

Some sounded more like the monotone speech synthesizer hardware though.

 

If they had only wired the input of the SC-01 to the POKEY instead of using a fixed frequency, we could have had singing Ataris.

 

:)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

My lot at Maplin made a kit / board for the Atari to give it speech via hardware, it was based on the SP0256 chip, was ok, bit better than S.A.M. but not vastly better but it had the advantage of just sending data to a port rather than having the software speech engine in memory. As with most of Maplins kits like the light pen and digitiser they never sold massively for the Atari, the light pen was pretty bad to be honest...

 

The digitiser was pretty fun, a lot of the early UK digitised demo screens / anims were done via it..OK, 16 shade mode 9(?) only but nice at the time

Edited by Mclaneinc
  • Like 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...