EBAY is your servant... 8-)

[Faicuai]

5 minutes ago, Sugarland said:

The VoiceBox II.

Yes!!

 

Version-2, Votrax-equipped... and running off the 400/800 "high-power" SIO supply (+12v)

 

Last one on eBay records sold for US $200, and it looks it was Version-1  (!)

 

So Version-2 market value maybe around $240-$280  ???

[Faicuai]

On 6/1/2021 at 1:27 PM, Sugarland said:

Congrats to whomever got it!

Well... did not want to count the chickens before the eggs hatched... but, yes, it was me, I won that auction...

 

 

 

...I may have been a bit conservative,  but I just did not want to find out that it was missing, broken, inoperative,, etc...  

 

I am happy to report that it is alive-and-well, and in BEAUTIFUL condition. My gamble worked! ?

 

There you have it: VoiceBox-II, w/ Votrax SC-01-a, and +12v SIO-powered! This one will also end up costing me zero ($0) bit after selling the rest of the payload, which, this time, landed intact !!! ??

 

It's pretty cool to hear that funny voice and multiple intonations... ??

[BillC]

Here's another 1200XL, no power supply and untested, at almost $300 with over 2 days to go.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/114827899785?_trkparms=aid%3D1110006%26algo%3DHOMESPLICE.SIM%26ao%3D1%26asc%3D20200818142401%26meid%3Db5817e3f4a214569a84eb1bce44660a0%26pid%3D101124%26rk%3D4%26rkt%3D12%26sd%3D154467378883%26itm%3D114827899785%26pmt%3D0%26noa%3D1%26pg%3D2563228%26algv%3DDefaultOrganic%26brand%3DAtari&_trksid=p2563228.c101124.m2109

[adam242]

interesting stuff, I guess.. but I still fail to see how this thread demonstrates how "eBay is your servant"

[Faicuai]

26 minutes ago, adam242 said:

but I still fail to see how this thread demonstrates how "eBay is your servant"

It's a valid point, though... A good servant, but not for everyone, perhaps?

 

I honestly can't complain, though...

[adam242]

9 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

It's a valid point, though... A good servant, but not for everyone, perhaps?

 

I honestly can't complain, though...

Another Florida douchebag. Been proving it to us for months.

[Faicuai]

30 minutes ago, adam242 said:

Been proving it to us for months.

Enjoy !!!

 

And plenty more to come! ??

[Faicuai]

Alrighty!

 

Good morning and from sweet, beautiful Florida!

 

Put the VoiceBox-II through its paces, yesterday, for a few hours. Passed all tests with flying colors, so we can assume this one is a keeper.  I later had a better chance to look at its physical condition up-close... 

 

SIO-connectors screws and washers are the #1 sign of storage condition of most of this gear... I usually expect some degree of corrosion, but this shine and gloss looks almost unreal (was not really expecting anything like it, to be honest...)

 

 

 

Here's the auxiliary power-port jack, if SIO port has no +12v present:

 

Up close, the exterior finish oddly shows no signs of use, either.... like having been unboxed a couple of times, and then stored again? 

 

Notice the RED-color font, which seems helping ID the v-II from the green-color in v-I (??) Gotta love the proud "Made in New York City, USA" punch-line! ??

 

 

 

 

That VB-II unit right there is worth $250-$300 in that condition. The auction itself was $206, or so, so without doing anything we are already in winning territory.

 

Also got a chance to check a bit more the trove of stuff that came in the box... And found this puppy, coming out of school (first one I find this origin, ever). I will take good care of it, clean it up and put it for sale (it is a late production, unit, with 48KB on-board):

 

 

There are also a 1050 and 1010 that I have not fully checked, yet, but will get those ready (nicely) for sale.

 

Hope this helps those real winners out-there with a future VoiceBox win.... If you ever see it in a packaged deal like this one, make sure you cock your guns and load your ammo, because they are worth the attention... and you could land them for really cheap !!

 

Cheers!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Sugarland]

On 6/4/2021 at 4:52 PM, Faicuai said:

Well... did not want to count the chickens before the eggs hatched... but, yes, it was me, I won that auction...

..............................

Quote

 

I am happy to report that it is alive-and-well, and in BEAUTIFUL condition. My gamble worked! ?

 

 

There you have it: VoiceBox-II, w/ Votrax SC-01-a, and +12v SIO-powered! This one will also end up costing me zero ($0) bit after selling the rest of the payload, which, this time, landed intact !!! ??

 

It's pretty cool to hear that funny voice and multiple intonations... ??

Awesome!! Looks amazing, like new. Happy you got it. It's something new and different that your A8's can do. Looking up the difference between VB 1 and VB 2:

 

Voice Box by The Alien Group, 1982
 - Built-in SIO cable - must end SIO daisy chain
 - Output: Routed via SIO to normal Atari Sound Output
 - Votrax SC-01-A Speech Synthesizer chip
 - Draws its power from the Atari
 - Cassette or Disk includes Random Sentence Generator and Talking Face

Voice-Box II by The Alien Group, 1983
 - Built-in SIO cable - must end SIO daisy chain
 - Output: Routed via SIO to normal Atari Sound Output
 - Votrax SC-01-A Speech Synthesizer chip
 - Draws its power from the Atari
 - Disks include 5 games:
   Concentration, Stud Poker, Spelling, Acey Deucey, Green Goblins

Do try these four games/applications and let us know. Does it sound just like a 1400XL? It also uses the SC-01.

Edited June 5, 2021 by Sugarland

[Faicuai]

5 hours ago, Sugarland said:

Concentration, Stud Poker, Spelling, Acey Deucey, Green Goblins

There seems more SW / tools, besides the games, available for the VB-II.

 

I will try to record a video with Poker, or Spelling, so you can all hear... Voice pitch / intonation, etc., seems to be adjusted everywhere.

 

The songs are funny... I will try to include one.... 

[+Stephen]

5 hours ago, Sugarland said:

..............................

Awesome!! Looks amazing, like new. Happy you got it. It's something new and different that your A8's can do. Looking up the difference between VB 1 and VB 2:

 

Voice Box by The Alien Group, 1982
 - Built-in SIO cable - must end SIO daisy chain
 - Output: Routed via SIO to normal Atari Sound Output
 - Votrax SC-01-A Speech Synthesizer chip
 - Draws its power from the Atari
 - Cassette or Disk includes Random Sentence Generator and Talking Face

Voice-Box II by The Alien Group, 1983
 - Built-in SIO cable - must end SIO daisy chain
 - Output: Routed via SIO to normal Atari Sound Output
 - Votrax SC-01-A Speech Synthesizer chip
 - Draws its power from the Atari
 - Disks include 5 games:
   Concentration, Stud Poker, Spelling, Acey Deucey, Green Goblins

Do try these four games/applications and let us know. Does it sound just like a 1400XL? It also uses the SC-01.

Would be interested in hearing how that chip compares to the SPO256-AL2 - I picked up an Atari VOX many years ago, it's a fun to make it swear

[Mazzspeed]

I find it amusing how in the 80s getting speech out of your computer was some super awesome thing.

 

These days, Cortana under Windows annoys the hell out of me and is one of the first things I disable. Even those computerized voice overs on certain YouTube videos annoy the hell out of me.

 

The only time it was cool was when the Imsai 8080 said "Shall we play a game?".

[+MrFish]

On 6/4/2021 at 4:52 PM, Faicuai said:

 

 

 

 

Interesting, they have the Electro-Harmonix (of guitar-pedal fame) logo on the front of the manual.

 

 

It'd be nice to have that manual scanned; I don't think it's been done yet.

 

[Faicuai]

Just now, MrFish said:

It'd be nice to have that manual scanned

I will get it scanned.

 

Nice catch (Electro-Harmonix)... Now that's interesting !

[+MrFish]

34 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

I will get it scanned.

Thanks, I appreciate it. That would be nice to add to my nearly-finished too-long-pending hardware site.

 

34 minutes ago, Faicuai said:

Nice catch (Electro-Harmonix)... Now that's interesting !

I recognized it right away. I used to own a few of their pedals when I was younger, and used some of their branded vacuum tubes in more recent years.

 

I'm guessing there might be some reference to Electro-Harmonix in the manual somewhere.

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by MrFish

[Faicuai]

4 minutes ago, MrFish said:

some reference to Electro-Harmonix in the manual

Intriguing, for sure.

 

As soon as I am done with the scan, I will upload it here, and we'll see.

[+MrFish]

7 hours ago, Sugarland said:

- Votrax SC-01-A Speech Synthesizer chip

 

So, another piece of the puzzle for the poor-man's 1400XL?

 

[+MrFish]

I wonder what the main differences are between the I & II (besides using green verses red).

 

The Voicebox I seems to have a variable adjustment knob on one end (if that's what it actually is).

 

 

 

[Faicuai]

14 hours ago, MrFish said:

I wonder what the main differences are between the I & II (besides using green verses red).

Very interesting:

 

Looking at this past recount, it now seems VoiceBox-II was produced with BOTH green and red labels, being the latter most likely late production, that also found its way to Europe:

 

(top is v2 and bottom is v1):

 

 

More details here:

 

 

 

Read about the company's history... FANTASTIC !!!  This bought me in, instantly:

 

"Dig it, I think I was hardwired to be unconventional!"

‒Mike Matthews

 

 

I am happy to know there is an EHX (or an off-shoot of EHX) product specifically made for Atari!

 

It should also be nice having that EHX logo re-created in an A8-image format... Their web-site color version is pretty cool (and different), and it even blinks an eye when loading for the first time! ?

 

[Faicuai]

21 hours ago, Sugarland said:

Does it sound just like a 1400XL? It also uses the SC-01.

Here's an initial clip with exact same message the 1400XL launches when entering Self-Test.

 

On VoiceBox-II. (intonation 6) brings it really close to 1400XL, just a tad slower ?  (NOTE: you may NOT immediately see the clip, and you may have to download it first, in order to play it back, it is an issue with AA, I believe, or the actual browser used to display the page)

 

 

Here's the 1400XL:

 

 

And here the A800 / VoiceBox-II:

[+MrFish]

2 hours ago, Faicuai said:

Very interesting:

 

Looking at this past recount, it now seems VoiceBox-II was produced with BOTH green and red labels, being the latter most likely late production, that also found its way to Europe:

 

(top is v2 and bottom is v1):

 

 

More details here:

 

 

 

Yeah, I knew there were some threads on here about them -- which is where I got some of the pictures I have.

 

OK, so green can be either version, but red is only for version II.

 

[Faicuai]

14 hours ago, MrFish said:

It'd be nice to have that manual scanned;

Here it is:

 

VoiceBox_II-Electro_Harmonix_EHX-FULL.pdf

 

Even the warranty card is in there... ?

 

[+MrFish]

No surprise, Kevin Savetz already did an interview with Mike Matthews back in 2017.

You can find some links to a demonstration video, among other things, on the Antic

Podcast page for it.

 

There also actually already is an available scan for the Voice Box II manual on Archive.org;

although the scans you've done here are nicer and in color. Thanks for taking the time.

 

Nothing about Electro-Harmonix in the manual itself, but there's a blurb on the Antic Podcast

page -- and probably something in the interview too (haven't listened to it yet myself).

 

8 hours ago, Faicuai said:

It should also be nice having that EHX logo re-created in an A8-image format... Their web-site color version is pretty cool (and different), and it even blinks an eye when loading for the first time!

 

Yeah, that's a pretty wild logo -- especially the animated version (linked below the static image).

 

 

Edited June 6, 2021 by MrFish

[+MrFish]

I updated the manual a little bit (bookmarks, rotation, cropping).

 

Voice Box II - Manual.pdf

 

[Faicuai]

15 minutes ago, MrFish said:

I updated the manual a little bit (bookmarks, rotation, cropping).

 

Voice Box II - Manual.pdf 5.96 MB · 1 download

 

Perfect work there.

 

I am just noticing that I am missing SW... by reading closely the manual... 

 

The bundled SW went through several revisions... the problem is that I have yet to find any media shipped with this VB-II (I never saw it on the auction, anyway, so I was not excepting it, as I had already cached it on local HD, in the form of TWO disks. There seems to be a THIRD one, though).

 

Specifically, the .BAS demo, and and the number-spelling .BAS code is missing. Will keep searching for it.

Thanks for that manual re-formatting. YES, that logo is pretty wild!!! Would LOVE to see it in some picture format for the A8... so everyone can have it... a rarely heard-of company, STILL alive today, that made an actual, COOL product for Atari... ??