Was the Odyssey2 Voice necessary?

[PickAxePete]

I just got The Voice for my Odyssey 2 and when I started playing K.C.'s Krazy Chase with it, I began to laugh.

 

It's really silly. The laugh after every completed board gets annoying. It's something that may entertain a six year old, but really now.

 

And the Killer Bees. ha.

I wonder if it's a completely electronic voice or if it's based on an actual person's voice, because I'd like to meet him.

 

Attack of the Timelord is all right with it, but I'm gonna play KC without it.

[Phosphor Dot Fossils]

The "game show announcer" voice was pre-recorded and broken down into digital form, I believe. The robot voice was phenome based. O2 programmer Bob Harris talks about it some more here.

[Scooterb23]

My Voice module doesn't seem to work

 

That's too bad, I understand Smithereens! is hilarious with the Voice!

[NovaXpress]

Magnavox didn't need a Voice, they needed to get the O3 out the door.

[raindog]

They actually did get the O3 out the door, just only in Europe as the Videopac+ or whatever.

 

The voice kinda detracts from KC's Krazy Chase, but it's good in Smithereens (more for the other samples than the voices) and nothing beats hearing "Keeeesshhh.... my... furry... asshhh..." in J.G. Munchkin.

 

And believe it or not, it seemed like a really big deal at the time.... I'm REALLY surprised no one ever came out with a voice module for the 2600 (as opposed to the screenblanking method used in Quadrun.)

[NovaXpress]

The Intellivoice seemd like a big deal too, but few people bought one. People just don't buy expansion modules for past-generation systems. Never have, never will.

[Mendon]

In my opionion, the problem with the Voice was that they never incorporated it as well as the Intellivision did. Seemed more like a way to just add sound affects than being a intricate part of the game. A novelty more than anything.

 

One game I **NEVER** use the Voice on is Turtles. That has to be the most annoying sound I have ever heard in my life.

 

Mendon

[jsoper]

Sometimes I think the O2 Voice was unnecesssary...

 

Sometimes I think the O2 was unnecessary....

[Tempest]

Sometimes I think the O2 was unnecessary....

 

Darn it! You beat me to it!

 

Tempest

[sku_u]

Sometimes I think the O2 Voice was unnecesssary...

 

Sometimes I think the O2 was unnecessary....

 

No love for the O2

 

I think the voice is an interesting piece of hardware for the time. Of course it's laughable by today's standards, but at the time it was revolutionary.

[NovaXpress]

The O2 was a fine machine for its day. Unfortunately Magnavox wasn't slick enough to realize that it's day had come and gone by 1981.

 

I think that the deluxe games like "Conquest of the World" were the only things keeping the system afloat for as long as it was.

[Ze_ro]

Sometimes I think the O2 was unnecessary....

 

Darn it! You beat me to it!

 

Well, it's still far better than the Arcadia 2001

 

--Zero

[Tempest]

Well, it's still far better than the Arcadia 2001

 

Now that's just plain mean!

 

And actually quite untrue. I'd pit the Arcadia against the O2 anyday.

 

Tempest

[raindog]

Yeah, I had an Odyssey2 and I think I would rather have had an Arcadia (especially since Zayre bought a LOT of their stuff and were selling the games for a buck each like Atari games when the store went out of business.)

 

Well, come to think of it again, I would rather have had a 2600 as my first system

[Rob Mitchell]

People just don't buy expansion modules for past-generation systems.  Never have, never will.

 

The O2 voice and the Intellivoice use the same family of speech chips that were popular in the early 1980s .. the General Instruments SP0256-xxx. I can pull the SP0256-AL2 out of my VecVoice (Vectrex) and plug either the O2 and Intelly chips amongst others in its place and survey the featured speech from my PC.

 

Some friends collect this family of chips. I know of one rare SP0 that was used in automatic electronic defibrillators. One word is "CLEAR".

 

BTW: I make and sell the VecVoice for the Vectrex and PC. I programmed the Pythagorean Theorem program for the Vectrex that speaks more words than any program that I know of.

 

Check out www.speechchips.com

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[Ze_ro]

Well, it's still far better than the Arcadia 2001

Now that's just plain mean!

Ah, just said it to get a reaction

 

I like the O^2 though... it has some strange charm to it that makes it seem fun to me. I also like the little "Odyssey^2 Guy" that's in most of the games.

 

The Arcadia never really caught my fancy though... seemed like all the games were just cheap knock-offs of popular games. The O^2 had it's share of those too, but it had a good chunk of originality in games like Monkeyshines, Pick-Axe Pete, Quest for the Rings and such.

 

There are no bad systems though... except maybe this:

 

 

--Zero

[NovaXpress]

Isn't it true that just one guy programmed almost all of the O2 games? That guy has to be admired for being so prolific.

 

What was the first game to have voice? Sega's Space Fury?

[killersquirel]

The first game to have had voice is an argument as to wether it was Bezerk or Stratovox as they both came out in 1980. Although Gorgar the pinball game had speech and came out in 1979. Gorgar Speaks, I am Gorgar.

 

-mike

[Cootster]

People just don't buy expansion modules for past-generation systems. Never have' date=' never will.[/quote']

 

The O2 voice and the Intellivoice use the same family of speech chips that were popular in the early 1980s .. the General Instruments SP0256-xxx. I can pull the SP0256-AL2 out of my VecVoice (Vectrex) and plug either the O2 and Intelly chips amongst others in its place and survey the featured speech from my PC.

 

The Apple II offered something similar' date=' as I recall . . .

 

Some friends collect this family of chips. I know of one rare SP0 that was used in automatic electronic defibrillators. One word is "CLEAR".

 

Did every talking device in that early 80s era use these chips? Is GI responsible for "Prease fasten seat bert"?

 

BTW: I make and sell the VecVoice for the Vectrex and PC. I programmed the Pythagorean Theorem program for the Vectrex that speaks more words than any program that I know of.

 

Check out www.speechchips.com

 

I shall. Always been fascinated with these things . . . Actually, I have an idea for an OS that uses one . . .

 

 

 

 

 

 

Rob Mitchell, Atlanta, GA

[minorleagueguy]

Anyone willing to get rid of their Voice module, I'll take it!!

 

 

minorleagueguy