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Were there any voice synthesizer's available for the 800xl


Jim Pez

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My lot Maplin made an electronics kit based around the SP0256, some BASIC examples were sullpied...Very ordinary but did the job..

 

You also had S.A.M aka Software Activated Mouth which was pure software only and again did a decent job, the fun was making a word sound good because it worked on phonemes often you had to write semi gibberish to get the best pronunciation. The other fun at the time was making it curse as much as possible...

 

Beyond that there were programs that used the SAM routine to play games like poker but apart from speech in games there were no other different software speech generator systems out there if memory serves me, perhaps other hardware add on's.

Edited by Mclaneinc
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The only built in was the 1200XL (I think)

 

As for the XL you may be thinking of the Alien Voice box

 

http://atariage.com/forums/topic/158228-voice-box-by-the-alien-group/

 

Here a really nice page about it..

 

https://archive.org/details/1983-alien-group-voicebox

Edited by Mclaneinc
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Ah, my mistake, thought the 1200XL had some inbuilt thing...

 

Sigh, as soon as I see 1400XL it reminds me of the 'coming soon' catalogue we had from Atari at Maplin with the 1450XLD which made me drool and I pre ordered it, sadly it never came to pass....

 

 

boo hoo

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S.A.M actually works well for my wants and needs, the trick is spelling word phonetically instead of proper spelling, so you can understand what is says when reading text, etc. I use a version built-in to ATOS and through SpartaDOS batch file I have it read aloud a text file I created with the computer introducing itself and it's upgrades ala HAL. It's quite fun.

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S.A.M actually works well for my wants and needs, the trick is spelling word phonetically instead of proper spelling, so you can understand what is says when reading text, etc. I use a version built-in to ATOS and through SpartaDOS batch file I have it read aloud a text file I created with the computer introducing itself and it's upgrades ala HAL. It's quite fun.

 

I would really like it if you would show us how this is done. Do you mean Sparta 2.x, 3.x, or SDX?

 

What's this about S.A.M. being built into Tom Hunt's ATOS?

 

How can I use a batch file to make S.A.M. speak?

 

Please inform us, we want to know.

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I built that one on perfboard back in '86. Note that there are 2 versions of the SP0256 IC, one outputs phonemes, the other allophones. This design needs the allophone one. 3 guesses how I found out...

The Page6 article didn't list the complete IC name, it should have read SP0256-AL2. My electronics shop supplied me with the phoneme one (SP0256-PH2). That one just gave out gibberish. Luckily I could return the (very expensive!) IC and got my money back. The shop said they never received the IC I needed.

After a few months I just cannibalized the perfboard. I think I used the board to build a modem based on a AMD7910 IC.

 

re-atari

Edited by re-atari
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I would really like it if you would show us how this is done. Do you mean Sparta 2.x, 3.x, or SDX?

 

What's this about S.A.M. being built into Tom Hunt's ATOS?

 

How can I use a batch file to make S.A.M. speak?

 

Please inform us, we want to know.

Firstly, to clarify, I don't know that it is the actual S.A.M included in ATOS, but it is a software text-to-speech program that will read aloud any .txt document it is fed, and it sounds and works just like S.A.M. ATOS works with SpartaDOS 3.x and SDX only, ATOS (yes, Tom Hunt's) includes the needed versions of 3.x to be memory compatible with ATOS and also with hard drives or SIO2PC. SDX you have to configure yourself. The ATOS manual tells you how to use the text-to-speech program, but for a batch file I did that myself. It's merely a batch file that loads up the speech program and said speech program will automatically search and read aloud a .txt file named "readme.txt" or something like that, so all you have to do is phonetically write a .txt file and name it "readme.txt" then the batch file does it all at boot-up.

 

As to using SDX and ATOS (16MB ATR image) with either SIO2PC or MyIDE II, I am currently writing a set-up how-to guide for that. It will be posted at Atari Sector forums when completed: http://atari.boards.net

Edited by Gunstar
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why not post it here as well?

 

lately I have been drawn in to a lot of discussions and been interested in them only to have the lets go to the competing forum/web site to continue or get whatever the thing is we are discussing. I like it here... and I may like some things elsewhere but I find it an uneasy thing as it becomes more and more frequent .... By all means send me to a git or personal site but leap frogging forums doesn't sit well with me. If and when I cross post I try to do a complete cross post... it's just me.. but I feel I owe it to the persons running each forum as they put their time effort and money into running and supporting us...

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why not post it here as well?

 

lately I have been drawn in to a lot of discussions and been interested in them only to have the lets go to the competing forum/web site to continue or get whatever the thing is we are discussing. I like it here... and I may like some things elsewhere but I find it an uneasy thing as it becomes more and more frequent .... By all means send me to a git or personal site but leap frogging forums doesn't sit well with me. If and when I cross post I try to do a complete cross post... it's just me.. but I feel I owe it to the persons running each forum as they put their time effort and money into running and supporting us...

I have no problem posting it here as well, but Atari Sector is my "home base" for 8-bit Atari forums as I am a moderator over there and I like the smaller community because it's less "busy" and topics don't roll off the first screen into oblivion in one day, unless they are hot topics, like here at AA (yes one can search for topics, but if you miss a topic about something you don't know about, how do you go about searching for it?!?). And because most threads here seem to be more announcement and discussion by committee and help wanted topic oriented (nothing wrong with that, it's why I still am active here too) while at Atari Sector it's much more like and interactive magazine with game reviews, how-to guides, rare hardware columns, show-and-tell and more. And because it's an UK forum (I'm their pet, token-Yank over there among staff), sub-forums not-Atari 8-bit oriented are much more unique to that region of the world. For example, sub-forums heavy with activity regarding Oric and Sinclair computers. Atari Sector is not just another junior copy-cat of Atari Age forums. But I don't have a problem going to another forum for more info on something if I am pointed to it.

 

And as you mentioned yourself, you "feel" you owe to persons running each forum, well, as a moderator and friend, I feel that way toward the persons running Atari Sector and it was already a slated and promised topic to come at Atari Sector and didn't even think about anyone having a problem with my only posting the topic there and just mentioning it here.

Edited by Gunstar
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most of the time I just click 'view new content' and it usually finds what hasn't been looked at for me... but the site does have plenty of search options...

 

I don't moderate here so there is no dog in the race... but I have been doing the 'op/mod/sig/admin thing since before the booming modem days. Just kind of an etiquette thing. As my post eludes it's kind of happening with frequency and the post is not directed squarely or solely at you Starfighter...:)

 

Making my way around the forums, I know what to expect from each. It's kind of like those ads all over the internet now, inserted in the page, looks like the page, but it's meant to send you somewhere else. I need protection from the XUR and the Ko-Dan armada. Centauri it's okay... we're all helping to support our Gunstars. :)

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