Ideas for a new speech & game cart

[Vic20-Ian]

I have had a lot of fun with fixing and testing Mikam's speech cart Chatterbox (Same as the Adman as far as I can tell)

I thought I would start this post to see if there would be interest in a version of the speech cart for those that haven't got one.

I sent RHurst some samples for the Berzerk game he might be working on which got me thinking about what I would want the cart to do. Please add your thoughts, maybe we can get it off the ground.

Here are my first thoughts.

1. Function as the original cartridge
2. Have a copy of Berzerk20 in eprom
3. Have a modified talkie version of Gorf in Eprom - Too Bad Space Cadet
4. Function as a Votrax for Scott Adams carts or modify the Scott Adams carts to function with a Chatterbox and store in eprom
5. The Vic needs an Astroblaster type game - e.g. Myriad with Speech and warp modes added

[GreyGhost]

That would be nice. If someone produced a cart with voice capabilities, I would buy one. But, I would almost like to see a Sid cart produced more. The Sid was capable of producing digitized voice. Sam was a good program for doing this. Also ran across a program for the Sid that lifted sounds and voice from the cassette recorder and digitized it(Sept 86 Ahoy on the c64 of course). Speech would be great but, sound with speech would be better to me.

Just for thought:

Aren't there other sound and voice chips that can be mapped to the Vic. I know the Sid is most popular with us commodore users, but there has got to be more of them out there that can be utilized.

[Vic20-Ian]

Nice idea, as then software speech like in Mission Impossible would be possible.

However, personally if I wantend SID sound I would use my C64, just my preference.

[sjgray]

That would be nice. If someone produced a cart with voice capabilities, I would buy one. But, I would almost like to see a Sid cart produced more. The Sid was capable of producing digitized voice. Sam was a good program for doing this. Also ran across a program for the Sid that lifted sounds and voice from the cassette recorder and digitized it(Sept 86 Ahoy on the c64 of course). Speech would be great but, sound with speech would be better to me.

Just for thought:

Aren't there other sound and voice chips that can be mapped to the Vic. I know the Sid is most popular with us commodore users, but there has got to be more of them out there that can be utilized.

Most of the speech carts I've seen are based on the SPO256 chip, which is very hard to find. I built a speech board for my B128 based on an article in RUN magazine (designed for C64). Check here. The SPO chip is very hard to find. There is a chip called "SpeakJet" (about $25) which is very powerfull and I've seen a board that is able to translate SPO256 commands to work on the SpeakJet. The SpeakJet also has regular sound channels. There is a project based on it here.

For me, I'd like to see a SID card too and an 80-column card. Would it be too much to ask for an all-in-one board with speech, sid, 80 column, and some ram?

Steve

[carlsson]

Aren't there other sound [..] chips that can be mapped to the Vic.

Oh yes! I expect you could map an AY-3-8910, SN 76489 or even Atari POKEY quite easily. All three of those chips produce sound equal to the VIC chip, just somewhat better frequency resolution. The SID outshines all of them, although certain AY people would think otherwise.

Then you have the series of Yamaha FM chips and alike, used in synthesizers, arcade and video games in the late 1980's. All of those would be even more advanced than a SID, but I don't know how much circuitry it would take to make e.g. a OPL cartridge for the VIC-20.

As for speech, I still would like to see anyone making a honest attempt in porting SAM to the stock VIC-20. You will need memory expansion but perhaps that is all it takes.
http://hitmen.c02.at/html/tools_sam.html

[Vic20-Ian]

Speakjet is £18.57 in the UK.

I think I can source the old sp0256 for about £9.50.

What do people think about the extra 5 channel sound capability? Is it worth doubling the chip cost?

How about this one?

http://www.speechchips.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=2


Available in an 18-Pin DIP or SOIC package.
2.0 to 5.0 Volts Operation
16Khz Sample Output Rate
2400 or 9600 Baud Serial Connection
6 Independently Controlled Voices
Amplitude Modulation
Frequency Modulation
Ring Modulation
Hard Sync
ADSR Envelopes
Musical Notes
English Phonemes
Sound Morphing
In-Chip Presets
Object Class for ooPIC

The SSG01 Sound Coprocessor (Soundgin) is a single chip 6-voice electronic music synthesizer sound effects / voice synthesizer chip. It produces complex sound effects, synthesizer style music and English speech with an unlimited vocabulary. Soundgin provides wide-range, high resolution control of pitch (frequency), tone color (harmonic content) and dynamics (volume). For use in manufactured electronics, educational and home projects.

[Vic20-Ian]

Anyone know where i can get a prototyping board for the Vic20 e.g. old maplin stock?

[RobertBe]

I thought I would start this post to see if there would be interest in a version of the speech cart for those that haven't got one.

I would buy one or two!

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

[RobertBe]

Anyone know where i can get a prototyping board for the Vic20...

Well, there is the Rittenhouse VIC-20 Multicart/Development cart at

http://www.gamingenterprisesinc.com/vic20/

You can even buy it as a bare board.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug
The Other Group of Amigoids
http://www.calweb.com/~rabel1/
Southern California Commodore & Amiga Network
http://www.sccaners.org

[sjgray]

Aren't there other sound [..] chips that can be mapped to the Vic.

Oh yes! I expect you could map an AY-3-8910, SN 76489 or even Atari POKEY quite easily. All three of those chips produce sound equal to the VIC chip, just somewhat better frequency resolution. The SID outshines all of them, although certain AY people would think otherwise.

Then you have the series of Yamaha FM chips and alike, used in synthesizers, arcade and video games in the late 1980's. All of those would be even more advanced than a SID, but I don't know how much circuitry it would take to make e.g. a OPL cartridge for the VIC-20.

As for speech, I still would like to see anyone making a honest attempt in porting SAM to the stock VIC-20. You will need memory expansion but perhaps that is all it takes.
http://hitmen.c02.at/html/tools_sam.html

I have an AY chip from long ago, and I could dig a pokey from a dead atari machine easily. Also, the SFX sound expander cartridge for the C64 uses an OPL chip, same as used in the original soundblaster card for the PC. Schematics are available.

Steve

[Pedro Lambrini]

For prototyping there's a board called the Baby 8-Bit. Protovision used to sell them. I'm not sure if you can still get them though... Also, Eslapion could be a good guy to contact.

[Vic20-Ian]

Two 8 bit babies on the way.

I hope the development doesn't take 9 months

[Vic20-Ian]

Searching for 3.12 MHz crystal. I can get 3.5MHz but it may affect speech timbre / tone i.e. not be that 100% faithful to the original.

Alternatively a Voltage controlled oscillator would make it a Vic20 controlled circuit bender toy

[Vic20-Ian]

The 2 SP0256 chips arrived today.

Still waiting for the 8 Bit Baby boards.

I checked the crystal spec and the Chatterbox uses 3.2768 MHz not the recommended 3.12 MHz crystal on the datasheet.

Still looking for crystals at the moment, looks like 3.12 is no longer produced.

I think I managed to dump the Rom in the chatterbox - just waiting for some feedback from Carlsson.

[Vic20-Ian]

Progress update

I have 2 of the 8 Bit Baby boards,
a selection of the hard to find logic chips (20 of each)
Except the 74LS629 VCO of which I only have 7 via Hungary)
DIL sockets,
Just 2 speech chips at the moment.
The 9 pin adaptors for the joystick port feedback signal (100 for £12 on Ebay!)

I just need the capacitors and resistors and should be good to go on recreating the Maplin design.

I might make the VCO circuit tunable with a Pot so we can circuit bend the speech output a little.

I have a few days off this week so will start laying things out on the 8 bit baby.