speech

[TI-Sissy]

i see the speech boxes on ebay all the time. are there many programs that use it? what is a good price for one?

[Omega-TI]

A good price is pretty subjective. As you said, you see them all the time, so they are not rare. In fact not many programs use them, although Rasmus ported over a COOL new program called TI-SCRAMBLE that uses speech.

 

Now this is just my OPINION, but I'd say $15.00-$25.00 would be in the ballpark, depending on what shipping turns out to be.

This photo below is of a NEW and unused Speech Synthesizer. You can check it out >> HERE <<

 

 

 

 

They are a cool little toy, I keep mine plugged in all the time, but it gets very little use.

[RobertLM78]

They are great for the programs that use them. As Kevan said - they are quite common, so you shouldn't have to pay more than $25 (and that would be for a 'new' one).

[+save2600]

Ditto for the above and if you're patient, you could probably scrounge up a good used/like new one here for $10.

 

If you ask me, I'd say the Speech Synthesizer is a must have, so go ahead and treat yourself.

[OX.]

I never really heard half decent speech emulation until I got my amiga in 87 and have to say that the TI speech module sounds better than that, for a comparative 8 bit machine using speech the Sinclair Spectrum using Covox speech just does'nt compare to the TI99/4a module, probably the best speech synthesis of any 8 bit machine to b honest.

[Willsy]

It's easily my favorite peripheral for the TI :-)

[ti99iuc]

i love to hear my TI99 Singing "O'Sole Mio" using the Terminal Emulator II cartridge ...

 

 

[...] for a comparative 8 bit machine using speech the Sinclair Spectrum using Covox speech just does'nt compare to the TI99/4a module, probably the best speech synthesis of any 8 bit machine to b honest.

 

excuseme, but the TI99 isn't a 16 bit computer ? ...

[+Lee Stewart]

...

excuseme, but the TI99 isn't a 16 bit computer ? ...

 

It is indeed! Much of the TI-99/4A, however, operates on an 8-bit bus.

 

...lee

[+mizapf]

Yes, but although this has often been cited as a point for 8-bit-ness, it is not really justified. The TI-99/4A has always been a full 16-bit platform, albeit with a time-multiplexed 8-bit external bus. The processor architecture is 16 bit, which is significant for the width. Every memory access in the TI console comprises 16 bits.

 

I think this was mainly due to the envy of those other home computer platform users who had to get along with 8 bit, telling us that ours were an 8 bit as well. No way. :-)

[TI-Sissy]

i am confused. i read once that somebody put 32k on the 16 bit bus. does it have two buss'? which one is the speech or nano on?

[TI-Sissy]

Ditto for the above and if you're patient, you could probably scrounge up a good used/like new one here for $10.

 

If you ask me, I'd say the Speech Synthesizer is a must have, so go ahead and treat yourself.

 

i just might treat myself!

[+mizapf]

The CPU bus is 16 bit. There is a 16/8 multiplexer in the console, going out to the I/O connector and the cartridge port. The task of the multiplexer is to split the 16 bit word by first latching the upper byte, passing the lower byte on the external bus with the least significant address bit set to 1, then routing the upper byte to the external bus with the LSB of the address set to 0. During the whole process, the multiplexer puts the CPU on wait state.

 

There are two components in the console which were located before the multiplexer: the 8 KiB "Monitor" ROM and 256 byte RAM. Those were not affected by the slowdown.

 

One way to make the console significantly faster was to connect additional RAM circuits directly in the console before the multiplexer, and to disable the wait state creation when the access hits the area of the RAM (2000-3FFF, A000-FFFF). The Speech Synthesizer and all external devices connect to the I/O port, so they are behind the multiplexer.