Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!killer!ames!umd5!purdue!krc
From: krc@cs.purdue.EDU (Kenny "RoboBrother" Crudup)
Newsgroups: sci.electronics
Subject: Re: Speech Synthesizer Info
Keywords: intellivision intellivoice speech-synthesis
Message-ID: <3279@arthur.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 23 Feb 88 00:29:27 GMT
References: <2459@ihuxv.ATT.COM> <264@icus.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Little Computer Fixit Shop of Horrors
Lines: 63

In article <264@icus.UUCP>, gil@icus.UUCP (Gil Kloepfer Jr.) writes:
> I got Matell Electronics' Intellivision Intellivoice cartridge for Christmas
> a few years ago when they were cheap so that I could take it apart and see
> how it worked (I liked their use of male and female voices in the games!).

You did that too? My little brother bitched and moaned for a whole month!!
 
> I noticed that the speech synthesis is performed by the SPO256-012 (is this
> different from the ...-AL2?)

Yes, and no. Different masking. The -AL2 has allophones masked into it,
and the -012, -017 (Radio Shit talking clock), -034 (?) (Some kind of game-
this was 4-5 years ago) had different masks, usually whole words/phrases.

> and an unknown 40 pin chip, also manufactured
> by GI and labelled SPB-640.  Questions:  Are the SPO256-AL2 and -012 the same
> chip?  Where can I get information about the SPB-640?

The SPB-640 is GI's attempt at getting more than the maskable limit of
rom onto the talker. See, what happens is you feed it (the '256) a 6 
bit data address, and this was the start index into a ROM. It then
began 'playing' a speech program. This way, the sound 'oh' and the
phrase 'Attention: Attention:' were accessed the same way. 

There was a provision for getting some external storage, but it was
in a weird format, serial of some nature, so that you could string
whole bunches of ext roms together (probably helped in the way the
device used it, too). The SPB-640 was a way of making standard
(address/data/*CE) type devices work with the '256. I had one,
but since I never got the format internal to the '256.....

I have a GI tech manual (they are in Indianapolis) which they sent me
for free (bullshit around like you're important :-). I got my AL2, and
the CT-something-or-other 40 pin that turns serial ascii words into
allophone codes for it. (Shall we play a game?) 

> I tried tracing the
> PC board by hand ( *:-{ ) but I hit some dead-ends since I had no info about
> the internals of the intellivision game unit.  Is there any information about
> the hardware/software inside the game available?

Yeah. The Intellivision (the original- I don't know about ITV-II) used the
GI 1600, a micro that ranks up there with the 1802. (I used to have both) :-(
Great for coffee makers, and traffic signals (there goes my free GI shit).
The GI tech manual tells a little about that too, and if you have time to
figure it out, you may get somewhere.

But- if you get the hardware man from them, rip out the sound chip. That
thing is *awesome*! No digital speech, but it is the  same chip (in a
different package- no i/o ports) as the one in the Atari 520/1040, and
similar to the one in the Commode-Door 64.

> Any help would be appreciated.  Thanks in advance to anyone who posts/emails
> a reply since I sometimes am lax about personal replies.
> | Gil Kloepfer, Jr.

Yeah, me too. I hate it when they give me *work* to do!

-- 
Kenny "_R_o_b_o_B_r_o_t_h_e_r" Crudup		krc@arthur.cs.purdue.edu
Purdue University CS Dept.		
W. Lafayette, IN 47907			1-31-88. A great day for football,
+1 317 494 7842				and Black Americans. Yo Dougie!