Cheep Talk from A.N.A.L.O.G. using SP0256-AL2

[Kyle22]

Has anyone considered this as in internal upgrade? http://analog.katorlegaz.com/analog_1985-04_120dpi_jpeg_cropped/analog_1985-04_059.html

 

It could be connected internally to the PIA, and the audio line from PoKey. Only thing is, joystick movement during speech will change the data bits going to the speech chip, which could produce unwanted (but interesting) results.

 

The quality isn't the best, but it was good enough for IntelleVoice and Odyssey2. The chip seems to be easily available on e-bay.

 

It looks like a quick and dirty type upgrade. No external support chips required.

 

Just a thought.....

 

 

[Rybags]

Something like that might be more suited to a cartridge, then the addressing could be unobtrusive via $D5xx accesses.

Audio in is another matter though, either some sort of SIO patch cable or modify the machine with a 3.5mm plug or similar.

[Irgendwer]

Has anyone considered this as in internal upgrade? http://analog.katorlegaz.com/analog_1985-04_120dpi_jpeg_cropped/analog_1985-04_059.html

 

 

Years ago this was described as an external upgrade for the joystick ports in the German "Atari Magazin" (4/88 Page 84, unfortunately issue is missing at AtariMania). I built one, but beside some nice experiments this wasn't of great use.

Playing with phonemes isn't that easy (experimenting with "S.A.M." is cheaper), no user base, no external support.

Not worth the hassle. I'm even willing to sell mine...

[kenjennings]

I built one. If I recall correctly ANTIC also had similar plans for the voice synthesizer. The voice quality is pretty good when you have the phenomes worked out. It's also a lot more practical on an original 800 and 400 which has four joystick ports, so a game coould still use the first two controllers and the synthesizer is plugged into the second two controllers.

 

The overhead for talking to the chip is really very low and the example program in the article spends most of its time polling. So I wrote a driver for it that ran off the VBI allowing a program to queue up several strings and go about its merry way. Sent it to Antic and ANALOG, bit neither magazine published it.

 

I had been working on a program to make designing phenome strings easier. But, the chip got fried (my fault) while I was coding it and never finished.

 

I've tried to find a chip several times before and they're not too common. Somoene must have found a pile of NOS chips if they're showing up now on eBay. Thanks for the heads up.

[ricortes]

Word of warning, many chips coming out of China are fakes/counterfeits. I've been hanging out in an DIY audio forum and it seems like 90% of certain chip types are either frauds or out and out trash. Manufacturer rejects and fall outs at best.

 

It makes sense on a despicable & crooked level. You get a batch of rejected chips and sell them at inflated prices. If someone actually finishes the project you claim they built it wrong and keep their money. If they never get around to building it, same tune.

 

It would be interesting to find out just how many people want their computers to talk to them. I used to have a SP0256 and SAM, thought they were really interesting. I've run into notable people that have made comments when the topic came up "People don't want their cars talking to them!" Bells, dings, klaxons, all ok. "Your door is unlocked!" verboten. I fear people like us are in a small minority.

[+Stephen]

Do a search for AtariVox (I believe in the 2600 forums). There's been a nicely assembled device using this sound chip for quite some time. It can also be used for saving hi-score data. Nice little device.

[Lynxpro]

I can't open up the later pages. Is it the same sound chip that was supposed to be in the 2600 Voice Commander or the chip used in the 1400XL/1450XLD?

[devwebcl]

oops.

Edited January 26, 2014 by devwebcl

[Kyle22]

I can't open up the later pages. Is it the same sound chip that was supposed to be in the 2600 Voice Commander or the chip used in the 1400XL/1450XLD?

The 14xx series use the Votrax SC-01 chip.

[JD6502]

I built the ANALOG circuit back in the 90's,but the chip had already been discontinued. More than fifteen years later I found a company called Greenweld in the UK that has some. Don't know if these are rejects, but the one I bought works. A quick check at greenweld.co.uk shows they're in stock for 9.50 (pounds), if anyone is interested.

[Stefan Both]

Is there a manual / plan of a DIY speech extension available?

I have a sp0256 chip left

Any suggestions welcome !

 

Stefan

[Stefan Both]

Uups ... sorry.

I stumbled across this thread by searching

for speech/voice chip. I did not realize,

I landed in the 5200 part of the forum.

 

Stefan

[firebottle]

The overhead for talking to the chip is really very low and the example program in the article spends most of its time polling. So I wrote a driver for it that ran off the VBI allowing a program to queue up several strings and go about its merry way. Sent it to Antic and ANALOG, bit neither magazine published it.

 

Any chance you have this program? I built Cheep Talk back in the day and still have it.

[kenjennings]

 

Any chance you have this program? I built Cheep Talk back in the day and still have it.

 

Not sure when I'll have time to look, but I'll find it someday.

[Irgendwer]

Is there a manual / plan of a DIY speech extension available?

I have a sp0256 chip left

 

This is the one I've built:

 

 

You can find the matching demo software on the "Atari Magazin"-disk 04/88: http://ataribasiclistings.mygamesonline.org/Atari_Magazin/Atari_Magazin_1988.7z

 

 

Uups ... sorry.

I stumbled across this thread by searching

for speech/voice chip. I did not realize,

I landed in the 5200 part of the forum.

 

No need to be sorry. This forum is for A8-bit and 5200 programming...

 

[YB-49]

On 1/25/2014 at 9:18 AM, kenjennings said:

I built one. If I recall correctly ANTIC also had similar plans for the voice synthesizer. The voice quality is pretty good when you have the phonemes worked out. It's also a lot more practical on an original 800 and 400 which has four joystick ports, so a game could still use the first two controllers and the synthesizer is plugged into the second two controllers.

 

The overhead for talking to the chip is really very low and the example program in the article spends most of its time polling. So I wrote a driver for it that ran off the VBI allowing a program to queue up several strings and go about its merry way. Sent it to Antic and ANALOG, bit neither magazine published it.

 

I had been working on a program to make designing phenome strings easier. But, the chip got fried (my fault) while I was coding it and never finished.

 

I've tried to find a chip several times before and they're not too common. Some one must have found a pile of NOS chips if they're showing up now on eBay. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Hello kenjennings.  A few weeks ago, I've pulled my A8 and ST gear out of the attic. After 30+ years, most of my floppies still work. I, too, built the voice synthesizer Cheap Talk based off the General Instrument SP0256 chip.  I had written some code in BASIC that assisted one in stringing together words and to make it sound halfway decent.  Yesterday I found my hardware and the software that I had written.  I intend to fire it up shortly to see if it still works. I would have liked to have seen your code- that Antic and Analog didn't publish!  I also found several more SP0256 chips still in the RadioShack packaging ready to go!

 

Let me know if you still have the code you wrote, after all these years!

 

 

- D

 

[Chilly Willy]

I bought one of those chips from Radio Shack back in the day. It's in a box somewhere with all my other loose chips.

[YB-49]

On 12/23/2019 at 4:06 PM, Chilly Willy said:

I bought one of those chips from Radio Shack back in the day. It's in a box somewhere with all my other loose chips.

Maybe you can find it.

 

I'm thinking of building a 2020 model. Recently, when I ran across the Cheep Talk box that I had put together all those years ago, I also found a chip from Radio Shack known as the CT5256A-AL2.  It is a TEXT-TO-SPEECH controller IC that is a companion to the SP025-AL2.  It's new in the packaging, but no specs or other information was attached.  I'd like to find out more about it.

 

 

[kenjennings]

On 12/22/2019 at 10:16 PM, YB-49 said:

 

Hello kenjennings.  A few weeks ago, I've pulled my A8 and ST gear out of the attic. After 30+ years, most of my floppies still work. I, too, built the voice synthesizer Cheap Talk based off the General Instrument SP0256 chip.  I had written some code in BASIC that assisted one in stringing together words and to make it sound halfway decent.  Yesterday I found my hardware and the software that I had written.  I intend to fire it up shortly to see if it still works. I would have liked to have seen your code- that Antic and Analog didn't publish!  I also found several more SP0256 chips still in the RadioShack packaging ready to go!

 

Let me know if you still have the code you wrote, after all these years!

 

 

- D

 

Buried on a disk somewhere.

 

I don't recall the  vertical blank driver being  very involved.   Keep a list of pointer to strings to send to the device, the number of bytes to send, and the current pointer.  Given the time to pronounce each phenome only one byte needs to go to the port each VBI at most.   I recall the only trick was that between hitting the bit to write to the port and then writing a value, the Atari had to do several NOPs for timing or the synthesizer would not get the value and then it would be saying gibberish. 

 

I could probably retool this if I can find some time to look at the magazines' BASIC code to write the port.

[kenjennings]

I did a first pass at a simple BASIC interface for a VBI driver to run the speech synthesizer.

It assembled (remarkably, first time), but I can't test this myself.  (No physical Atari available and no working CheepTalk).

About 270 lines of assembly.  Any bets on if it actually runs?

 

Code is here.

 

https://github.com/kenjennings/Atari-CheepTalk

 

The code is assembled at $9B00 (39680) through $9BC8 (less than one page.)   That is the page before the default GRAPHICS 0 display list for a 40K (or more) Atari running 8K Atari BASIC.   (Boot up with BASIC, go to DOS, binary load the AtariCheepTalk.xex file, then it should be in memory, and you can return to BASIC.  [I think].)

 

USR(39680)  is the CheepTalkInit routine for BASIC.   It will set up the PIA port, and it will attach the VBI.

 

USR(39728, ADR(STRINGVARIABLE), LEN(STRINGVARIABLE) ) is the CheepTalkSpeech routine for BASIC to pass the address and length of the phoneme string to the VBI.   The routine will sit and wait for the the VBI to finish sending a string to the speech synthesizer before loading up the address for the new string.   (Therefore, one string of phonemes at a time.  Do not modify/rebuild a string that is currently being serviced by the VBI.)

 

PEEK(39876) is a status byte that BASIC can check  to see if the VBI is busy running the speech.   0 means the VBI is not servicing a speech string.  nonzero (2) means it is busy sending a string.

 

[kenjennings]

Of course it was broken.  I realized in the middle of the day that the DEC and flag checks for decrementing the length were a  broken, stupid idea.   Rebuilt.

 

https://github.com/kenjennings/Atari-CheepTalk

 

USR(39680)  is the CheepTalkInit routine for BASIC.

 

USR(39728, ADR(STRINGVARIABLE), LEN(STRINGVARIABLE) ) is the CheepTalkSpeech routine for BASIC to pass the address and length of the phoneme string to the VBI.

 

PEEK(39883) is a status byte that BASIC can check  to see if the VBI is busy running the speech. 

 

[kenjennings]

Yet another bad branch condition.  Reassembled and re-uploaded.    It does not change the addresses for routines above.

[zzip]

I remember I bought all the parts to build this when that article ran.    But I didn't quite have the electronics skill to assemble it while in my teens, so the stuff sat in a box forever.    I may even still have them somewhere.

[ivop]

On 2/8/2017 at 8:44 PM, Irgendwer said:

 

This is the one I've built:

 

 

You can find the matching demo software on the "Atari Magazin"-disk 04/88: http://ataribasiclistings.mygamesonline.org/Atari_Magazin/Atari_Magazin_1988.7z

 

 

Can you tell if this one's compatible with Cheep Talk?

 

Anyway, ordered two SP0256s by sloooow boat from China from somebody that has sold over 80 already, without complains apparently. $2,99 refurbished. We'll see.

[YB-49]

3 hours ago, zzip said:

I remember I bought all the parts to build this when that article ran.    But I didn't quite have the electronics skill to assemble it while in my teens, so the stuff sat in a box forever.    I may even still have them somewhere.

That would be awesome if you still had that box of parts.  It is a fun project.