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From: jgreco@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Joe Greco)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.cbm
Subject: Re: C128D
Message-ID: <471@uwm.edu>
Date: 13 Oct 89 16:39:54 GMT
References: <89276.135528MHM104@PSUVM.BITNET> <23035@cup.portal.com>
Sender: news@uwm.edu
Reply-To: jgreco@csd4.csd.uwm.edu (Joe Greco)
Organization: Interstellar Telephone, Telegraph, and Telepath, Inc.
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In comp.sys.cbm article <23035@cup.portal.com>, Belrek@cup.portal.com (John V Dufresne) wrote:
>For example the game Cave of the Word Wizard a childrens spelling game
>requires the Wizard in the game to say the word aloud and have the child
>respond with the correct spelling; unfortunately one has to turn the voluem
>of the Monitor/T.V.(have tried it with both) up to maximum to hear him 
>whisper.  I tried the same game with a C128(old version) and the game
>works perfectly as do SID tunes like the theme from Skate or Die(digitized
>sound).  Any others have the same problems?  I have had the system checked
>and it is in perfect shape, design flaws.

Actually, I believe it is a design flaw that the speech synthesis relies on.
A long time ago, a friend was working on a speech digitizing and recreation
program that relied on the SID to provide a pop when needed to generate the
sounds (I believe this was accomplished via the volume register).  Similar
to the pop you hear when you put the SID volume from 0 to 15 suddenly...

In any case, I do also recall that he had some problems when he ran into a
newer version of the SID which had the popping problem greatly reduced....
his program became quite mute.  That's what you get for relying on sneaky
techniques and hardware bugs.

I'd be willing to bet that the Word Wizard game also relies on this or some
other similar SID bug to provide it's speech capability.  Very bad
programming practice.  There's nothing wrong with your C128D, if this is the
case.  There's something wrong with the program!  :-|

(Gee, how many times have I gotten on a soapbox about compatibility?)

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