I used sound blaster features to replace the original sound of a keyboard with fart and burp sounds to listen to my country national anthem and kids songs. I laughed my ass off for moths.
Right, it used the ARPA phonemes (something like the IPA but using ASCII characters) which were also used in the Amiga’s narrator.device. The phonemes were only enough for US English, but with a bit of improvisation you could also have it talk German.
I remember when my parents bought a Soundblaster for our 386. The "therapy" program it shipped with was called Dr.Sbaitso, and would fully speak to you like a psychiatrist. You could also tell the software to speak what you typed, which led to all sorts of mischief!
I had a Dr Sbaitso program on a more modern computer from about 16 years ago , you got samples / colour photos of animals or you could load photos of your own , you could type in a caption and it would make the image move and talk to what you typed
Yeah; This really brings me back. Just to say; The Speech synthesizer program was separate from Dr. SBaitso, Dr. SBaitso just utilized a program that you could actually use for a lot of things, so you could do a LOT of mischief without bothering about the Dr. SBaitso program.. Just saying; I LOVED goofing with Dr. Sabaitso. I especially loved the first time he responded with "I am in love with a math coprocessor".
I like to support British content creators. Especially, those who are too young to have been in the golden era of microcomputing. Learning and understanding the humble origins of the bedroom coder scene, who ended up establishing some of the big developers of the modern times. Like people say, she's straight to the point, no waffle or fillers and she keeps her audience engaged. Well done Kari, keep up the great work.
I was going to recommend S.A.M. if no one else already had. :) Software-based too. Not hardware. I remember having fun with that back in '88 when I first got my first C64. Fun times!
@@LordHasenpfeffer Oh yeah... SAM was great. It could say anything, if you tinkered with it a bit for trickier words. You could tinker with its pitch, speed, all sort of things. Pretty excellent software speech synthesis for the time. It also had an amusing accent. I also have the C64 version and had fun toying around with it. :-)
I didn't have any of these, but back in the 80s, I had a copy of SAM, the Software Automatic Mouth, an entirely software base speech synthesizer for the C64. Once it was loaded, you could use a command (I think it was SAY) to make it speak anything you wanted. You could use other commands to change the pitch and speed, and you could use phonetic spelling to improve the pronunciation. You could use the commands in BASIC programs as well. Back then I would sometimes type in programs from magazines, and often, they would have large sections of data, which would be prone to typing errors. At first, the magazines didn't have any kind of proofreading program, so I made my own for the data parts. When run it would ask for a starting address, and would then use SAM to read the number at that address and speak it as a three digit number, such as "1-4-9" or "2-0-5". I made it joystick controlled so that I could step through memory addresses, repeat the current address, or go back one address. Combined with a joystick extension cable, I could lie on my bed with the magazine and use the joystick to have SAM read out the numbers as I followed along in the listing.
I remember S. A. M. and its application Reciter. We played around with it and were surprised how good it sounded. One demo program that came with it called "S. A. M. sings" showed off what you could do by changing the four variables speed, pitch, throat and mouth. We made up words that sounded German when pronounced in English as the software was only capable of English phonemes.
Bizarrely I used it for exactly the same thing - read DATA lines to me, using the joystick fire button as a trigger. How did you do the repeat and back one address functions?
@@nkronert I don't remember exactly how I had it set up, but I think it was right on the joystick to go to the next address, left to go to the previous address, maybe the button to repeat the same address. It was all just reading the joystick functions and adding or subtracting from the variable that contained the current memory address. As I recall, the harder part was getting it to read the digits separately, like "Two zero five, one seven nine, zero four three".
I think SAM had a demo where it goes through some samples of what it can do. The one thing that always stuck with me was when it said, "Oh wow wee, that was a toughie"
Mark my words, this channel is going to grow fast! these voices remind me of Sinistar! "I am Sinistar" "beware I live" along with the rest of its menacing phrases are some of the most terrifying moments in my gaming career.
Common, where is the trick? She is cute, she likes games, she enjoys tech, she repairs tech, and she even programmed on the channel. You must admit that there is something fishy.
@@Hermas_360 You are overthinking it. I think the best thing about the vids is that they are under 10 minutes. I don't have time to sit and watch 20 minute videos full of bloated waffling. Kari's vids are short, punchy, straight to the point, and only show what is relevent; which is the most important thing for me. And of course, I like the tech involved.
That's awesome a new generation playing with machines I grew up on ...... I loved my TI/99 4A growing up .... The voice synthesizer was so awesome Alpiner was a favorite for the "Uh oh nooooooo" sound when you fell lol
I spent many hours playing with Superior Software "Speech!" on the BBC Master Compact. I distinctly remember going to the store and asking if there was any software that could make the computer talk. I was not disappointed.
I know the c64 has better games but I actually like my ti99 better, they keyboard is better imo, I like the cart slot, the look of the computer, the display and the data cassette is better.
Kari, you would like the Odyssey 2 and the voice module. Sold as the Philips Videopac G7000 in Europe. Also I think you would enjoy SAM (Software Automatic Mouth) for the Commodore 64. You're on such an exciting journey, and you're gonna love every minute of it!
Nice, love a bit of old school speech synthesis. Super curious about those mini TVs on the shelf, do they work well? Can you get a composite input into them?
My mate brought around his synthesiser and plugged it into my ZX Spectrum in the late 80's. I thought the future had arrived! 😅 I'd love to see that again. 🥰
Gorf was definetly the first time I heard speech but it was the arcade machine. Later seen it on the Amiga 500 which was impressive apart from that only thing that came close was maybe hearing Sega a few times. Loved your fix videos as well, I'm curious as to how such a pretty girl got into retro tech consider me a subscriber.
Would be nice if you talk about the different speech technologies and the chips. Linear Predictive Coding, phonemes, the TMS5200 and SP0256AL2 speech synthesis chips.
Very cool. I remember using S.A.M. (The Software Automatic Mouth) on my Commodore 64 back in the 80's --> en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth
Hardware only speech synthesis was not the only option back in the day. You missed S.A.M.(Software Automatic Mouth) - a software solution for C-64 (and others) speech synthesis.
Please do the TI-99/4A. I got my speech synthesiser for it aged 12, before WarGames was released. If you get the Terminal Emulator 2 cartridge you'll get full Text To Speech from TI-BASIC and it was the best speech of any machine of the time
I can't believe you "censored" E.T's ... tail. It's a tail. I know E.T. is male, but that is 100% a tail. Anyone who thinks otherwise, that's on them roflmao
Very cool. Had a C64 when I was a kid. It was my first computer. Was so cool to eventually get a 5 1/4 floppy drive for it and played some of my first games. Wasteland 1988. Sub'd and liked great video!
The first text to speech computer I used to mess with was my dad’s Amiga 2000 in Workbench. I forget what the program was call but it sounded like Stephen Hawking. 😂
LOL I can't believe you managed to accumulate all those speech synthesizers! I got sucked into buying the Texas Instruments speech synthesizer just so I could play Star Trek on the TI-99/4. Ok, strictly speaking my parents got suckered into buying it LOL but I guess it paid off cuz I ended up getting jobs in the technology sector a decade later. (The TI-99/4 was not really a good purchase in retrospect. Better technology but Apple II had way more software.)
I had something very similar sounding to the Currah back in late 80s/early 90s, on c64. I remember pre-typing kind of ummmm, abusive sentences and then playing them over the CB radio, and shit-stirring people over the airwaves. Every time a new person got on channel I'd type new sentences to stir them. Correct with phonetics.... If I wanted to call them a MF, I'd have to spell it muther rather than mother... you can guess the rest... p.s. That was in my much younger days, lol
"Welcome to MacTalker on the Macintosh. The Macintosh is one of the world's most used computers. To get more information about MacTalker click on the help button." (Ok - a little propaganda, I know!) Pretty sure that was the default opening dialogue of the software voice synthesizer for Mac circa late 80's. It allowed the computer to speak any dialogue boxes that popped up on your computer (along with a system extension called MacinTalk). In fact, in researching this, I was reminded that the first Mac featured the MacinTalk extension, and even in the promo vidoes for Mac it announced itself to the world using its own "voice".
I think S.A.M. comes somewhere in between those two devices without having to fill up the solo cartridge slot. Granted, I don't know if there was any official software that supported SAM. But it sure was neat to code your own BASIC game or program and give it the superpower of speech. This isn't to say that the SID's ability to talk was exclusive to these three options. A handful of games sure had their share of things to say. Be it from second long sound clips to potentially their own voice synthe software. I am thinking 'Cave of the Word Wizard' was voiced over sampled. Perhaps even 'Kennedy Approach' with an impressive number of words to say. And there must be dozens of games with well done samples. Like "Ahhh... another visitor. Stay awhile. Stay.... for...ever." for example.
Anyone remember that True Blue audio sample that was going around on the C64? It was only a couple of seconds, low quality digitized audio but back then it was magic.
I still have my Currah module from when I was a kid in the 80s. I don't know if they all do it, but with mine, when running the speech detect on the keyboard, the programmers forgot to put the R at the end when you push the "Function Four" key. it says "Function Fo." And yes- I caught your War Games movie reference there at the end!
Wargames was one of the movies that got me into programming weird stuff (Also Explorers). I had a hardware C64 speech synth cart, might've been a Currah 64. It was interesting seeing everything broken down into phonemes as you start doing the voice.
I am pretty sure I had a voice synthesizer for ZX Spectrum, just software based and sounded kind of rubbish but worked. Anyone remember which one could that be?
Be careful when inserting modules in old systems, the C64 circuit board original solder joints had lead solder used to solder the components & are susceptible to cracking over years of use under varying temperatures, & plugging in peripherals without being very gentle, would be enough to make joints fail, crack or detatch from their circuit traces & the system will fail to operate correctly, if at all. Ensure more reliability by completely removing all solder & reflow all joints with quality lead free solder. I'm pointing this out because I think you haphazardly inserted the first module. Line up the pins with the slot & torque push the module all the way until you can no longer push in, do not use the see saw method you did. I find it amazing to see a lass that is into retro tech & she uses old genuine hardware instead of cheating, like using an emulator. I would love to see her do an 80's period episode, like making her hair, makeup & clothes in the 80's theme with an old VHS filter on the video & acting as though the C64 is a brand new bit of tech.
Given that speech could be synthesised by two basic sounds back in 1939, using Voder and a specially trained typist (ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-0rAyrmm7vv0.html), it fascinates me that those principles couldn't have been used for early computerised voice syntesis.
I have c64 and use SAM (software based) as well as thr currah cart you are using. I also use Adman Speech Maker which is another cart based util. If you could track it down it might make for another good demo. There is also a game out there which is compatible with it called Jack and the beanstalk by Thor.
I had a Currah Microspeech for the Spectrum. No matter how well you typed in the phonetics, it could barely be understood. TBH, considering the price of it back then, I felt that it was a bit of a rip off.
I'd love to tell you about the time in the 80's my buddy and I made some of the girls in our computer class cry because we wrote a program to simulate launching nukes, but it's a very long story with some backstory and IRL preparation lol
I never knew Gorf had speech! I’ve had that game on disk for a good 35 years or so and it does not have speech. I wonder if it would work if I had the Magic Voice.
I don't know, so many years later, how people liked that joystick. Anyway, good video. My favorite game from those days with speech synthesis was Kennedy Approach. I have only played the Atari ST version, did a video on it for my channel, so I don't know if the other versions had speech too. I absolutely loved the game and yes speech in any game added a lot back in the day. Thanks for the video and sure more videos on it would be fun.
I think the one in wargames was probably real? I had the Currah uSpeech for the ZX Spectrum. I remember I had a budgie at the time which I called Kit Curran, so I programmed the Currah uSpeech to repeat its name over and over in a loop hoping that would make it learn it's name. It didn't, and it died shortly after 😭
great video, new subscriber.. i used to have a currah speech for the speccy, back in the 80's and you're totally right, me and my mates would spend hours getting it to say rude words. i noticed there was a boxed currah on ebay last week.. i so wish i'd bought it.. especially as it sold for only a tenner.. someone got a great bargain.. hours of fun..
In 40 years we've advanced to much on voice synthesis. Today we can generate speech that is difficult for most people to tell apart from spoken speech.
