Gilbyph Posted August 7, 2020 Share Posted August 7, 2020 Good day! I remember there being a video on YouTube of a short clip of Spaceballs being played using a Ti-99/4a, but when I went to look for it today I couldn't find it. Is anyone familiar with this clip? Was it in fact being played on actually TI hardware? Is the video available to watch somewhere else besides YouTube? Thanks for any information! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pixelpedant Posted August 7, 2020 Share Posted August 7, 2020 I believe that was an early demo of Tursi's FMV tech, whose final expression would be TI-99 Dragon's Lair. Doesn't seem to be on YouTube anymore. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Ksarul Posted August 7, 2020 Share Posted August 7, 2020 The demo does, in fact, play on a 99/4A. I made a couple of test cartridges with the BIN file and demonstrated them at the Chicago Faire a few years ago, IIRC. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted August 7, 2020 Share Posted August 7, 2020 TI-99-4A-DVLP-TURSI-v1.04.pdf 63.09 kB · 90 downloads 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbyph Posted August 8, 2020 Author Share Posted August 8, 2020 It's been a while since I've seen the clip so my memory may be a bit fuzzy, but I remember it being very impressive! Not only the video, but also the audio. I'm very surprised that the TI sound chips can put out such great sounds! It got me thinking, is the TI capable of playing actual music? Like some kind of MP3 equivalent? If the TI can not play music (let's say a song by Journey), what would be the road block? The sound chip? The size of the music file? I know the TI wouldn't be a very efficient MP3 player, but has anyone ever tried? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) Yes, that was mine. I took down all my YouTube videos when the rules changed six months ago or so, but I put some back up. In general I've lost confidence with YouTube and I'm tired of literally everything with audio being copyright claimed. (My own voice over was once copyright claimed.) My main channel is now over at lbry.tv, which seems to be a bit of a cesspool in general for random browsing and has very poor discovery, but they're working on it at least. It's distributed which makes shutting down or claiming videos a lot harder, so I've put more samples up there than on YouTube (since I believe they are no more than tech demos). https://lbry.tv/@tursilion:1 It looks like I did not repost that particular video at either site. It's a 2MB cartridge ROM made with an early version of the tools -- as a result it actually plays a little too slowly. When I did Dragon's Lair I fixed the toolchain to encode at the correct rate. misc_Spaceballs8.bin This is a four megabyte ROM that will play in any emulator that recognizes the banking and can play sampled sound. Doesn't look like I saved the playback video. Also, IIRC, it takes only /just/ over 2MB, so if you just crop it to 2MB for burning to EPROM, you don't miss anything important. This version is actually re-encoded with the Dragon's Lair settings, so you get the more stable dither and the correct speed playback. I also quietly stored all my demo video ROMs here: http://harmlesslion.com/temp/TI_vids/ (Edit: you can also fast forward, rewind, and pause with joystick 1 ) For quick and easy browsing, after extracting the zips you can just drag and drop the carts onto Classic99 to play them. Edited August 8, 2020 by Tursi 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+OLD CS1 Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 5 minutes ago, Tursi said: just drag and drop the carts onto Classic99 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 30 minutes ago, Gilbyph said: If the TI can not play music (let's say a song by Journey), what would be the road block? The sound chip? The size of the music file? I know the TI wouldn't be a very efficient MP3 player, but has anyone ever tried? Now that you mention it... The speech synthesizer in my estimation, is a predecessor to and synonymous with MP3 hardware decoding. The speech synth. is capable of running at a much higher frequency. By encoding a slowed down signal, then decoding at a faster rate, wider bandwidth and better resolution can be achieved! Haven't tried with music yet though. Other than that, the TI just needs a 16-bit D-A converter and more, fast RAM. Throughput from mass-storage devices will be a bottleneck to sustained playback, I'm certain. Hmm, I'll bet @Tursi could pull it off! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 The synth synth really is analogous to an MP3 player, but the encoding used is really limited to voice frequencies - it does a generally poor job on music (and in fact can't even handle all voices). But it is indeed just playing back a recorded signal. I've been bugging Matt to give me the tools I want for audio. 3 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 17 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said: The speech synth. is capable of running at a much higher frequency. Oops, I didn't mention this requires changing a resistor in the speech synth's VCO. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbyph Posted August 8, 2020 Author Share Posted August 8, 2020 31 minutes ago, HOME AUTOMATION said: Oops, I didn't mention this requires changing a resistor in the speech synth's VCO. Do you have a link to the speech synthesizer resistor modification? I don't think I've seen it before. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbyph Posted August 8, 2020 Author Share Posted August 8, 2020 @Tursi I just watched Bad Apple on your site. It was pretty cool! I can't wait until the sound is improved! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, Gilbyph said: Do you have a link to the speech synthesizer resistor modification? I don't think I've seen it before. Only links: I did this about 20 years ago. Looks like I've removed R6 altogether. R4 is open, I have a variable resistance in its place, not sure of the value, probably, 1, 10, or 50k, maybe 100k. Anyway, turning in one direction will slow speech down, the other, will speed speech up. Turning up too far, can cause a crash, presumably, because the TI can't stream the data any faster. The cable is for sound feed-through. P.S. Don't stop ...believing! Edited August 8, 2020 by HOME AUTOMATION 'cause I can! 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbyph Posted August 8, 2020 Author Share Posted August 8, 2020 Yay Journey! ? I'd love to hear "Only Solutions" from the Tron soundtrack coming out of a TI! Thanks for the pictures! What made you want to modify the speech synthesizer like that? Is it a useful modification? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 Your welcome. Journey. ...sorry, never got into Tron. A desire to get hi quality female speech, understandable to anyone, for use in radio/telephony and automation. With proper adjustment of Text-to-Speech pitch/speed variables, speech synthesizer frequency, and the use of an equalizer, this can be accomplished! It was supposed to be... highly useful ...Oh well. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilbyph Posted August 8, 2020 Author Share Posted August 8, 2020 @HOME AUTOMATION I've never heard of this speech synthesizer modification before, maybe you should make a new thread to share it with others! I'd be interested to know how far the speech synthesizer can be pushed, upgraded, or even if it can be redesigned into a speech synthesizer 2.0, but that's getting pretty far off topic. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toucan Posted August 8, 2020 Share Posted August 8, 2020 (edited) 20 hours ago, Gilbyph said: @Tursi I just watched Bad Apple on your site. It was pretty cool! I can't wait until the sound is improved! haha. When I first read this I thought Tursi did this song on the TI: Edited August 8, 2020 by Toucan 3 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tursi Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 On 8/7/2020 at 7:09 PM, Gilbyph said: @Tursi I just watched Bad Apple on your site. It was pretty cool! I can't wait until the sound is improved! Nice thing about that one is because it's monochrome, I doubled the frame rate. But I don't have a generic player for that one so I never got around to cartridge-izing it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HOME AUTOMATION Posted August 9, 2020 Share Posted August 9, 2020 19 hours ago, Gilbyph said: @HOME AUTOMATION I've never heard of this speech synthesizer modification before, maybe you should make a new thread to share it with others! I'd be interested to know how far the speech synthesizer can be pushed, upgraded, or even if it can be redesigned into a speech synthesizer 2.0, but that's getting pretty far off topic. Perhaps I should/will... But, the monkey is on my back these days, not much time for fun or useful things. It does offer a little bang for less than a buck, if you can solder or even get creative with test clips. Hmm, Speech Synth 2.0... Got me thinkin'... The sound chip responds quite fast, can produce white noise... VODER (1939) - Early Speech Synthesizer or maybe a 12-pole filter's function could somehow be approximated and excited by the generator. Arduino Speech Synthesizer: Talkie Library LPC Speech Generator Once again, sounds like a job for someone with more experience than I. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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