Thanks for your video, but I can't view it, marked private...
Sorry about that. I thought private meant you had to have a link to find it. Apparently that's what the "unlisted" setting is for.
I changed the video to "public" like all my other ones.
As I mentioned in the video, I haven't gotten my RoboVoice chip to work yet. I realize now I hadn't tested the little speaker with some other sound source to make sure it wasn't the problem. I had also used the wrong value of capacitor but I doubt that was the cause of my problem. I give the RoboVoice another try sometime soon.
Excellent vid. I sure hope your RoboVoice is not working due to your wiring error and not my schematic!
Once again, my article is the Kiss of Death. As soon as the article gets in print, some specific part goes obsolete or unavailable. In this case, Radio Shack no longer carries that little white speaker/amp I linked to. They had it last month, cripes, they've sold that thing for 20 years! Unbelieveable.
Previously, my Retrobot article (and numerous posts here) called for Hamamatsu P5587 optical sensors. Junun was apparently the last supplier of those and they ran out after the article was published.
Hmmm. Now let's see. Knowing I have this power, what product will I kill off next? I DID mention Arduino in the RoboVoice article too, but apparently there's a "one kill per article" limit in effect.
Duane: Please tell me you got your RoboVoice working... there ain't much to go wrong with so few components. You're a handy guy, I'm sure it was something simple. I keep encouraging Ken L. to make a PCB. I'm in the minority, being a guy who actually enjoys hand-wiring boards with point to point wiring.
Just added a basic talking calculator function to my talking keyboard terminal. Four-function integer math with auto constant, limited to 65535. Simple, but you gotta start somewhere! It was actually a fun project to code and get it talking properly. Uploading video as I post here.
Drats. My compadre Ken at Speechchips, who makes the IMO fabulous $17 RoboVoice chip, is calling it quits. He's out of stock and about to shut down the Speechchips.com website. He's been the Keeper of the Flame for many years in supplying old speech chips like the SP0256 and related parts. I'm sad to hear he's transitioning into writing apps.
I'm hoping he might consider making a final batch if there's any interest here. You can read the details in this thread, but in a nutshell:
Ken created the Robovoice chip as a modern replacement for the 1980's-vintage SP0256 chip plus its companion TTS chip. No crystal required, easy to build. Same robotic sound quality as the 1980's chips. Compared to Emic2, lower sound quality and lower price. Still fun to doodle around with and have speech on your bot.
I'm considering doing a bulk buy from Ken to make it easier on him, he kinda wants to be done with it and hasn't agreed to make any more yet. Either way, assume shipped chips are about $20 each (probably combined ship OK). If you want one (or several), reply fast, he's in a plug-yanking kinda mood.
Ken, you want to put a hundred on the Parallax website? They work just dandy on a BoeBot!
Another option might be for someone like Ken (Gracey) to license the source code, allowing Ken (Lemieux) the ability to get a little extra cash out at the endgame, without having to do another run. AFAIK, these aren't fabbed chips, but MCUs programmed in C. If Ken wants to bail completely, he might consider putting the source code out there in LGPL or MIT.
The problem might be that this isn't a growth market. Not sure if Parallax would want to sit on 100 chips... ?
Either way, I wish Ken the best in his future endeavors. He's one of the good guys.
I just saw that Ken has a little utility download (an executable file, I just installed it, no problems) to generate SP0-256 sounds & phoneme codes. Fun to play with around with IMO. http://speechchips.com/shop/item.aspx?itemid=13
And he confirmed he's out of the RoboVoice business.
I guess you have to be older to have your ears attuned to early speech synthesis.
I can make just about all play back, but when I ask a teen, they have no idea what the speech is.
What I did with my kids, back in the GI-SP days, was I would put the words on screen as it was spoken, so they could correlate what was spoken with the words. After a month or so, they would know exactly what was being spoken. My first attempt at teaching them a new language.
My son later on learned Japanese. Way beyond my pay grade!
Koko-ni. Soko-ni. A-soko-ni. Here, there, & way over there.
Biru, beeeeru. Building, beer.
Me giving directions to office to taxi driver: "That tall gray beer right here!"
Lots of little subtleties in Japanese and Chinese that I always mispronounce. Fortunately, other cultures are very forgiving and appreciative of any effort we make!
Comments
Sorry about that. I thought private meant you had to have a link to find it. Apparently that's what the "unlisted" setting is for.
I changed the video to "public" like all my other ones.
As I mentioned in the video, I haven't gotten my RoboVoice chip to work yet. I realize now I hadn't tested the little speaker with some other sound source to make sure it wasn't the problem. I had also used the wrong value of capacitor but I doubt that was the cause of my problem. I give the RoboVoice another try sometime soon.
Once again, my article is the Kiss of Death. As soon as the article gets in print, some specific part goes obsolete or unavailable. In this case, Radio Shack no longer carries that little white speaker/amp I linked to. They had it last month, cripes, they've sold that thing for 20 years! Unbelieveable.
Previously, my Retrobot article (and numerous posts here) called for Hamamatsu P5587 optical sensors. Junun was apparently the last supplier of those and they ran out after the article was published.
Hmmm. Now let's see. Knowing I have this power, what product will I kill off next? I DID mention Arduino in the RoboVoice article too, but apparently there's a "one kill per article" limit in effect.
I plan to make a post in the next day or two (hopefully today) on what I've been working on (more LEDs).
Just added a basic talking calculator function to my talking keyboard terminal. Four-function integer math with auto constant, limited to 65535. Simple, but you gotta start somewhere! It was actually a fun project to code and get it talking properly. Uploading video as I post here.
Drats. My compadre Ken at Speechchips, who makes the IMO fabulous $17 RoboVoice chip, is calling it quits. He's out of stock and about to shut down the Speechchips.com website. He's been the Keeper of the Flame for many years in supplying old speech chips like the SP0256 and related parts. I'm sad to hear he's transitioning into writing apps.
I'm hoping he might consider making a final batch if there's any interest here. You can read the details in this thread, but in a nutshell:
Ken created the Robovoice chip as a modern replacement for the 1980's-vintage SP0256 chip plus its companion TTS chip. No crystal required, easy to build. Same robotic sound quality as the 1980's chips. Compared to Emic2, lower sound quality and lower price. Still fun to doodle around with and have speech on your bot.
I'm considering doing a bulk buy from Ken to make it easier on him, he kinda wants to be done with it and hasn't agreed to make any more yet. Either way, assume shipped chips are about $20 each (probably combined ship OK). If you want one (or several), reply fast, he's in a plug-yanking kinda mood.
Ken, you want to put a hundred on the Parallax website? They work just dandy on a BoeBot!
The problem might be that this isn't a growth market. Not sure if Parallax would want to sit on 100 chips... ?
Either way, I wish Ken the best in his future endeavors. He's one of the good guys.
And he confirmed he's out of the RoboVoice business.
I still like to play retro with my original DECtalk, (1984).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DECtalk
A $2,800 box that still works, (good old Moto 68000). Does not rely on Unix, DOS, MacOS, Windows, BeOS, Android, Altair Basic......
I can make just about all play back, but when I ask a teen, they have no idea what the speech is.
What I did with my kids, back in the GI-SP days, was I would put the words on screen as it was spoken, so they could correlate what was spoken with the words. After a month or so, they would know exactly what was being spoken. My first attempt at teaching them a new language.
My son later on learned Japanese. Way beyond my pay grade!
Biru, beeeeru. Building, beer.
Me giving directions to office to taxi driver: "That tall gray beer right here!"
Lots of little subtleties in Japanese and Chinese that I always mispronounce. Fortunately, other cultures are very forgiving and appreciative of any effort we make!