Can you test a speech synthesizer without any cartridges?

[Mitkraft]

I just got a speech synthesizer that I bought off eBay and the seller did a terrible job of packaging it and it suffered some cosmetic damage in shipping. I'd like to verify that it's still functional but I don't have my XB 2.7 cart yet. All I have is a PEB with the standard cards, console, Donkey Kong cart and Pacman cart. Any way to test it?

 

If not I'll just wait for my XB cart. Thanks!

[budz2355]

If you go into TI basic and type:

 

CALL SAY ("HELLO")

 

I believe that will work. I know it works in XB, but I'm not sure if it will work in regular basic...?

[+Lee Stewart]

If you go into TI basic and type:

 

CALL SAY ("HELLO")

 

I believe that will work. I know it works in XB, but I'm not sure if it will work in regular basic...?

 

Not without a speech-enabled cartridge (Terminal Emulator II, Speech Editor, Alpiner, Editor Assembler, Extended Basic) or a way to access non-VDP memory.

 

...lee

[Tursi]

Correct, you need a cart that supports speech, the raw console doesn't.

 

Alllllthouuuuugh... we do have the Playground loader now. Didn't someone do a test of using the speech synth from that? If not.. maybe we can whip up something quick and dirty that just says HELLO out of the built-in vocab?

[Gazoo]

PARSEC.dsk

 

You could always load PARSEC from TI BASIC and see if the speech in the game worked .

 

Gazoo

 

[jdgabbard]

^^^ Thats assuming he has a way of loading gone dsk file....

[Mitkraft]

Ok, so I got a copy of the Terminal Emulator II cart which I understand should enable CALL SAY("HELLO") to work. When I enter it however I get "Bad Name". Does that mean it doesn't recognize the speech synthesizer or am I doing something wrong?

[+Lee Stewart]

The TEII cartridge does not add a SAY routine to TI Basic. Rather, you must open the SPEECH device for output and PRINT to it:

OPEN #1:"SPEECH",OUTPUT
PRINT #1:"HELLO"

...lee

[Mitkraft]

Man you guys are fast! Thanks Lee, that worked like a champ! So now I know the speech synth works. Yay! Next phase is to decide if I'm going to fool with floppies, buy a floppy emulator, or do an HDX mod to my rs232 card (leaning towards the HDX mod). I'd probably buy a CF7+ instead if they were available.

[Opry99er]

HDX mod is good stuff. You can also install a 3.5" floppy drive for more stability of media. This will allow you to transfer programs via HDX, save them to 3.5 floppies, and run them that way. 5.25 disks are relatively volatile in comparison to DSDD 3.5 disks, and you can find giant lots of DSDD 3.5 disks on eBay that have old PageMaker files and stuff on em for super cheap.

 

Just format em, and you're off to the races.

 

Using HD disks CAN be done, but I would suggest sticking with DSDD. They're very available.

 

Glad your speech synth works.

[notwhoyouthink]

 

Not without a speech-enabled cartridge (Terminal Emulator II, Speech Editor, Alpiner, Editor Assembler, Extended Basic) or a way to access non-VDP memory.

 

...lee

Wait a minute...! You mean plugging Alpiner in and going to TI Basic is enough to use speech? Are you sure?

I got a Alpiner cart laying around someplace but have not played in a while. Had no idea it enables speech in ti basic.

Is it by the CALL SAY("") method or the OPEN #1:"SPEECH",OUTPUT

PRINT #1:"HELLO" method?

[+arcadeshopper]

Wait a minute...! You mean plugging Alpiner in and going to TI Basic is enough to use speech? Are you sure?

I got a Alpiner cart laying around someplace but have not played in a while. Had no idea it enables speech in ti basic.

Is it by the CALL SAY("") method or the OPEN #1:"SPEECH",OUTPUT

PRINT #1:"HELLO" method?

 

nope.. just run alpiner, to test the speech

[digdugnate]

otherwise if you are trying to explicitly use TI Basic to test without a cart... you can't. (You'd need another cart like TEII or Speech Editor).

 

I did find a cool brochure, tho.

speech.pdf