VOTRAX SC-01 Speech Board ???

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

Is the VOTRAX SC-01 in the list of I/O Expansion boards?  

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[da...@hansels.net]

No, you can see the list of expansion boards here:

https://github.com/dhansel/Altair8800-IOBus#io-cards

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I forgot to include the word "future" in that question.  

The VOTRAX SC-01 is also a parallel controlled chip ... Looks like 6-bits parallel.  

I'm just thinking I'd like to add a third voice to my Altair-Duino Pro computer since I have a  VOTRAX SC-01-A chip.   

Now days I kind of wish I had bought a bunch of them when they were on sale for $10ea.  That's why I have a huge pile of SpeakJet chips.  

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[Tom Lake]

Is the VOTRAX a lot easier to program than the SP0256-AL2? I'd go for that!

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

I figure it's about the same programming either SC-01 or SP-0256-AL2 chips.  

OTOH, I've found the SpeakJet chip is the easiest ... even easier than all those microSD card .mp3 player boards and easier and more capable than the Parallax Emic2 module.  

Overall, the SpeakJet chip has speech and song developer software that runs in MS Windows10.  

Phrase-A-Lator Development Kit Demo     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4L8gMcj5qP8  

So easy to use, so easy to expand the "Dictionary" as people learn to create more words from the sounds, pauses, speeds etc.  

The really nice thing about the SpeakJet chip is that control only needs a single bit-banged INPUT from the hardware (best at 9600 BAUD) so it seems to me it should be easy to be done on an I/O Expansion board.  I've thought of trying a design myself, but I don't have very much circuit board design experience, nor how to address one PIN on the I/O Expansion buss or setup a card I/O address.  

The normal hardware connection "INPUT" needed by the SpeakJet chip is a simple 9600 BAUD serial data IN ... nothing fancy, no need for clocks or other signals.  All the control is how the data is sent to the chip in 64 or less bytes at a time.  I tried using the hardware buffer control and found it was 100x more work to create a song.  Software bytes are easy to "PAUSE" for singing timing.  

Tapper Sings "I Gotta Get Me Some"     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ic9aR1kmu74  

Because you can on the fly change the pitch of the voice, the SpeakJet chip can have different voices.  

Best thing is I have lots and lots of these chips for $25ea.  + $5 shipping (average USPS cost for a small box.)  So much cheaper than anything else available.  

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[geka...@gmail.com]

Don't waste your time on a SC-01 board, you'll never locate the IC at a reasonable cost.  They are used in a handful of pinball and video consoles (Q*Bert etc) and have been unobtainable for years. 

The SP-0256-AL2 is way easier to locate, and by comparison inexpensive. 

Probably the best bet is to look how John Monahan implemented the V-Stamp Speech Synthesizer on his S100 boards.  http://s100computers.com/My%20System%20Pages/SUPER_IO%20Board%20II/SUPER_IO%20Board%20II.htm

Back to lurking in the background :) 

- Gary

[Walt Perko]

Hi, 

A lot of people have a VOTRAX SC-01-A chip sitting around doing nothing.  

OTOH, the  

V-Stamp

The V-Stamp is a feature-rich, self-contained voice/sound synthesizer and recorder, measuring only 1.7 square inches in size. Among its many features are text-to-speech conversion, audio recording and playback, musical and sinusoidal tone generation, telephone dialer and four-channel A/D converter. Operation is from a 3.3 V or 5 V power supply; low-level line and 1-watt speaker outputs are provided.

All of the V-Stamp's features are accessed using a standard logic-level serial interface. The V-Stamp mates with two standard, 12-pin PC board connectors. Separate power pins are provided for the onboard digital and audio subsystems, allowing for several possible output power and power consumption combinations. Pricing for the V-Stamp with 2 minutes of recording memory (models with up to 33 minutes are available) ranges from $75 to less than $30 in volume.  

So for all the features of that $75 module that's nearly 2" square they're included other than "recording" in the $25 SpeakJet chip which is a 18-PIN DIP ... much smaller package and 1/3rd the cost for a "Vintage" voice.  

She Speak chip = Voice, Singing, 5-channel music synth.  

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[geka...@gmail.com]

Not familiar with the SpeakJet, you're correct it might be a better option.   My thought was that some of the work interfacing the V-Stamp was already done (and it works nicely).

If you do have spare SC-01's you might want to cash in :)  If I didn't have a few boards (MicroMint, Votrax) that use them I'd sell my spares!