Speech synth cartridges

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Fri Jan 15, 2010 3:38 am

I have two speech synth cartridges for Vic20. Both have same looking boards. I just wonder was there any software that would support speech cartridges at Vic20?

Never really find use for those..

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 3:58 pm

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 5:51 pm

cool - always wanted one of those - one day ebay.....

Barney · Post by **Barney** » Sat Jan 16, 2010 8:26 pm

I remember back in the day my friend had a speech synthesizer for his VIC that came complete with a cartridge and a speaker. The cartridge had an RCA connection, that after plugged in, you would connect this bookshelf size plastic speaker. I looked for years to find that same model and only found it once on ebay....and I got outbid damnit.

Barney

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 3:47 am

But I really never found any software that would support those. Just did remember that Chatter box stop working, there was bad connection at connector and someone tryed fix it. Now I got picture but it doesnt speak. Other cartridge doesnt have covers, pcb only. Guy who sold it to me told that.. i think he had it inside Vic20 or something, that why there was no covers left. I wish someone could fix chatterbox one day and there was some software to try with it. I remember rumor that those text adventures would support cartridge, but they were also at cartridge..

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 4:55 am

If you want to post it to me to take a look at it I would be happy to.

It would be good to try it out and then return it as working.

rhurst · Post by **rhurst** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 9:03 am

How "programmable" are these carts? Do they have documentation and/or software drivers, and if so, will a scanned copy find its way to BombJack and/or Bo Zimmerman? Perhaps they are already there and I just need to look, eh?

I am being a little selfish here, because I want to meet Jeff's demands for a Berzerk clone... but it would be a teaser and a treat if there was voice added to it. Perhaps using a "plug-in" approach, if it were possible to support more than one of those carts.

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Sun Jan 17, 2010 9:43 am

Hi Ian. That would be very nice. You could PM me your adress. Thanks.

--

Both carts I have PCB looks like same.

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 6:30 am

Hi Mikam73,

The chattebox arrived today. I will take a look next few days.

Do you have test commands to make it speak or a manual?

Ian

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 7:59 am

Those speech synthesis cartridges have been discussed several times on Denial, without making any real conclusions. Try some of these threads and see if you can find something useful:

http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... .php?t=257
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... .php?t=261
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... .php?t=619
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... .php?t=693
http://sleepingelephant.com/ipw-web/bul ... php?t=1260

There should be even more threads, those were the first five I found.

Actually in the last thread our German friend Jogi comes to the rescue with a scanned manual. Now Ian could run some OCR onto it and get a nice text/word document we can upload on the wiki or somewhere.

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:05 am

Mikam73,

I have fixed the Chatterbox at lunchtime...at least temporarily.

The din connectors are in a bad way as pins have fractured internally (unusual) probably fatigue from pulling in and out.

The lack of sound was due to a previous repair person connecting speech out to the video pin.

5 mins of soldering and I have speech but I need to replace the dins and cables to make it robust and good as 1982.

Anders - not sure I have any ocr software but can probably do something with the manual.

Jeff - do you still want sound recordings? PM me your phone number and I might get the Vic to chat to you

Ian

carlsson · Post by **carlsson** » Tue Jan 26, 2010 9:09 am

As a matter of fact, if you happen to have Microsoft Office installed (not sure about your religion), chances are that you have an add-on called "Document Imaging". You may need to convert the PDF to images of a certain format (TIFF comes to my mind), but this Imaging program does fairly good OCR as part of the Office suite. I believe quite few people are aware of this, but it has helped me more than once when a customer sends a PDF or image and wants the text onto a web page or similar.

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:32 pm

Ian: Any news about Chatterbox?

Vic20-Ian · Post by **Vic20-Ian** » Fri Jan 29, 2010 4:52 pm

I fixed the incorrect wiring but it is basically shot to bits - needs new cable due to a break and new din plugs which I will order tomorrow.

I will rewire it to as new condition for you and post it back at my cost.

I don't suppose you would trade or sell me your circuit board only Adman version after I send you the renovated chatterbox back? They are identical boards as far as I can tell from the photos. I am interested in the function not that it is 100% complete.

Regarding the manual, I tried converting the pdf back to tiff first but it was poor.

I have now printed out the pdf and scanned it back into Word doc format using office tools OCR that Carlsson suggested. That worked better.

It will take a few hours to complete but is on the way.

I will try and complete the board next week before I head over to Stockholm, Sweden for the week. If you are nearby I could hand it over in person. Let me know.

Ian

Mikam73 · Post by **Mikam73** » Sun Jan 31, 2010 11:26 am

Thank you very much. I could maybe sell other board sometimes later. Its board only. Have you find any software to play with it?