Project: 2600 Voice Module

[starfighter1314]

Hi All,

 

Not sure if this is the right forum for this, but I just completed a prototype voice module for the VCS. If interested, please check it out at

http://www2.hawaii.edu/~ncook/

 

Thanks!

s

[4ever2600]

Holy Schiznitt! That is one AWESOME device!! There are tons of games that could enhance! GREAT JOB!

[Gateway]

That is very cool!

 

So, you live in Hawaii, eh?

[StanJr]

Woah. This is wicked impressive. This could be a revolution in homebrewing efforts! What is it going to cost, when will it be released and will it be sold through the AA store or directly from you?

 

Very, very exciting news!

 

[moycon]

Hmmm I looks to be tied into the player 1 joystick movement?

Seems to me it would get annoying after a brief period.

Still...impressive. I just don't see how youd use it with a game without it driving you batty.

[joesmooth]

Great idea for a speaker case!

 

You could also try using the Emic Text-to-Speech Module sold by Parallax (http://www.parallax.com/detail.asp?product_id=30006) - it's extremely simple to use and doesn't require that you have stored speech samples - it will covert any text you want into speech (so, you could send the desired text through the joystick port to the device).

 

Of course, I'm sort of biased - I designed it

 

Joe

[Tom]

from your website:

no battery needed, powered by the console  

 

makes me wonder, what's the maximum load the 6532 can drive ?

[Thomas Jentzsch]

Cool stuff!

 

BTW#1: Shouldn't it say "120 seconds at higher compression rates"?

 

BTW#2: The picture on the first page loads terrible slow (several minutes!) on my modem connection. Maybe you could use a different one for that page?

[Bruce Tomlin]

from your website:

no battery needed, powered by the console  

makes me wonder, what's the maximum load the 6532 can drive ?

The joystick ports have a +5 volts power supply pin. The 6532 doesn't need to provide power.

 

The 6532 outputs can definitely drive one TTL input, and I wouldn't be surprised if they can drive four or five of them. (Standard TTL and LS TTL can have a 10:1 fan-out to the same type of TTL input.) I have in the past used the joystick ports and a MAX232 chip to do 2400 baud serial output.

[Bruce Tomlin]

That first picture is at digital camera resolution with only a HEIGHT and WIDTH attribute to shrink it down to a thumbnail. In addition to taking almost an entire minute to load over DSL, this is a great way to suck up bandwidth and piss off your webmaster. It needs a downsampled image VERY badly. In fact, digital camera resolution is too much even for the linked image.

[Curt Vendel]

So wait... Joe this is a ascii text to speech synthesiser that can be run off of a serial wire pair?!?!? Oh I gotta gets me a new toy!

 

 

 

Curt

[starfighter1314]

Thanks for the kind words and encouragement guys! Yes, I do live in Hawaii, but luckily I am making the long trek to CGE this year. I can't wait!

 

As for making and selling these, right now I am in the "gauging interest" stage. I kinda don't think there would be enough interest to go through the trouble of finding someone to make a PCB for it - I'm no EE! (my soldering job in the casing is all kinds of scary). If that turns out to be the case, I will just post the diagrams and if someone wants to build one they can. For someone who is experienced in soldering, it would probably be easy to do (only 2 chips!)

 

My apologies for the rushed demo; I see there was some confusion over it. The speech samples are under FULL software control. My demo only shows sounds being tied to joystick movement and on cartridge startup. It is just as easy to play a sound when a collision occurs, the score or level advances, etc. I hope to hack Adventure ("when all else fails, hack Adventure") with some voice samples this weekend to show a better demo. If I finish it, I'll try to bring it to CGE. If someone wants to see it there, let me know.

 

Joe, the Emic Text-to-Speech Module is a way cool device! Can it do different voices too? This would really make for a cool project with the joystick port - no limitations on recording sizes. I didn't go the text to speech route mainly because of cost. As it stands, I can make one of these modules now for about $25, not including the joystick housing. (Of course, I try not to cannibalize working joysticks!) This includes the sound chip which can be reprogrammed.

 

Thanks for looking,

s

 

BTW Thanks for the comments on my webpage. I fixed the first image and I will leave the close-up image until UH complains.

[sabeen557]

dats pimpin

[Tom]

The joystick ports have a +5 volts power supply pin.  The 6532 doesn't need to provide power.

 

cool. didn't know that (obviously).

[Tsukasa]

...if someone wants to build one they can. For someone who is experienced in soldering, it would probably be easy to do (only 2 chips!)...

 

I would like to build one of these! I am experienced in soldering.

If you make the design available, then homebrewers can start writing games for it that could be sold at the AA store.

[foxglove9]

That is very very cool!

[dykesr]

IF that ever becomes available i am buying 2 of them holy hell that is the greatest thing ever i know it could get a little annoying but i want one so bad.

 

RD

[Albert]

This is very cool, and a very clever use for the CX-40 joystick base. I bet it would be pretty easy to modify some existing homebrew games to take advantage of this.

 

..Al

[moycon]

My apologies for the rushed demo; I see there was some confusion over it. The speech samples are under FULL software control. My demo only shows sounds being tied to joystick movement and on cartridge startup. It is just as easy to play a sound when a collision occurs, the score or level advances, etc.

 

Whoa!!!

That would be awesome!

I can't even begin to image the possiblilities for this add-on!

Hopefully some of the home brewers will take advantage of this voice module. I imagine a 2600 version of War Games.

 

"Shall we play a game"

[HermChase]

Amazing...Simply stunning...Wow.

 

Great work, man! This could be a revolution of sorts!

 

 

------

Chase Hermsen

[ATARIPITBULL]

Now that is a fresh idea!

 

[kisrael]

I wonder if there would be any way to make the sound come out through the TV speaker rather than the seperate one? Like have the program read a value from the serial port and stick it in the audio register...eh, probably hard to synch, and maybe your speech module

 

(Though the atari-stick base speaker is pretty damn cool)

[mos6507]

Not to take away from the accomplishment here, but using prerecorded samples of words seems like cheating to me.

 

There is already a general purpose speech synth around which is the VecVoice which should be compatible with any DB9-based system. It's just that nobody's written a driver for the 2600 yet.

 

VecVoice uses the Speakjet chip now which has a lot of features that makes it useful for not just speech but sound effects and one-voice music.

[JB]

That first picture is at digital camera resolution with only a HEIGHT and WIDTH attribute to shrink it down to a thumbnail.  In addition to taking almost an entire minute to load over DSL, this is a great way to suck up bandwidth and piss off your webmaster.  It needs a downsampled image VERY badly.  In fact, digital camera resolution is too much even for the linked image.

He NEEDS to crop it, if nothing else.

 

Heck, I'LL crop it.

I'll even resize it.

[+Nathan Strum]

That's very cool!

 

Would there be a way to make it be an intermediate device, that plugs into the console, and then a cart plugs into it, so it would pass the audio through to the TV somehow? (Yeah... I know that probably wouldn't work. But being technically ignorant is bliss. )