Another New SP0-256 Voice Synthesizer
erco
Posts: 20,256
http://www.ebay.com/itm/261270401093?var=560220996676
Suddenly, retro-style voice chips are coming out of the woodwork. Here's a finished USB board & system with 1980's robotic sound like the GI SP0-256 chip. Interesting GUI, but IMO, functionally it falls short of the $17 RoboVoice chip. There's no TTS capability, nor is there an input buffer, so you have to parse individual allophones to it, which would get tedious using a microprocessor. Further, you can't change the tone using a micro. Unless you want to play with it hooked up to your PC, it seems like a step backwards. I'll stick with a RoboVoice or Emic2. Here's a reply from the seller:
Greetings,The Allophone 64 Voice Synthesizer is designed to directly interface with most microcontrollers and microprocessors. To utilize this feature you need two I/O pins. One serves as an output for clock and data, and the other is used as an input for the busy signal. The data is transmitted serially with the clock and individual data bits are determined by the width of each clock pulse. The busy signal goes LOW will the unit is vocalizing. It has no buffer, so each allophone must be transmitted individually. But you can use the busy signal as an interrupt to request the next allophone, so it's not very labor intensive. The pitch is controlled through the GPIO ports on the USB interface, so they are not available through serial interface, although it could be possible to connect 2 I/O pins from your microcontroller directly to the Synthesizer board.Unfortunately, we only hav a PDF of the instructions and spec sheet, and we can't send PDF through Ebay. I hope that answers all your questions.Thank you,- galaka
Suddenly, retro-style voice chips are coming out of the woodwork. Here's a finished USB board & system with 1980's robotic sound like the GI SP0-256 chip. Interesting GUI, but IMO, functionally it falls short of the $17 RoboVoice chip. There's no TTS capability, nor is there an input buffer, so you have to parse individual allophones to it, which would get tedious using a microprocessor. Further, you can't change the tone using a micro. Unless you want to play with it hooked up to your PC, it seems like a step backwards. I'll stick with a RoboVoice or Emic2. Here's a reply from the seller:
Greetings,The Allophone 64 Voice Synthesizer is designed to directly interface with most microcontrollers and microprocessors. To utilize this feature you need two I/O pins. One serves as an output for clock and data, and the other is used as an input for the busy signal. The data is transmitted serially with the clock and individual data bits are determined by the width of each clock pulse. The busy signal goes LOW will the unit is vocalizing. It has no buffer, so each allophone must be transmitted individually. But you can use the busy signal as an interrupt to request the next allophone, so it's not very labor intensive. The pitch is controlled through the GPIO ports on the USB interface, so they are not available through serial interface, although it could be possible to connect 2 I/O pins from your microcontroller directly to the Synthesizer board.Unfortunately, we only hav a PDF of the instructions and spec sheet, and we can't send PDF through Ebay. I hope that answers all your questions.Thank you,- galaka
Comments
I didn't see a link to a record example (found it on the seller's website, where the item is $2 less), but this caught my eye: "64 unique allophone samples stored on 2MB of onboard memory."
So, not like an SP0256, which used linear prediction and lookup tables to simulate the vocal tract, but what appears to be simpler concatenation of prerecorded allophone samples. This can be tough to do and still maintain intelligible speech. The recorded sample on the seller's site is acceptable, but not great.
On a similar note (bite), it has been suggested that the digital portions of the SP0256 mask made use of GI's early programmable technology, which included the PIC1650. That technology was of course later purchased by Microchip.
I'm more surprised by the SEVEN SM ICs on there. Why so many chips? No TTS capability, so what's the worst case scenario for discrete chips? A sound chip, a processor, a ROM, an audio amplifier, maybe an FTDI USB chip, a voltage regulator? What the heck's going on here? Looks like 1980's era IC technology was used to generate 1980's era speech quality.
Nice find though.
I'm still glad I bought an SP0-256 from Radio Shack way back when just before they disappeared.
I'm with you, shimniok. I have a nice collection of vintage speech chips. SP0256 from the shack, SPO250, Votrax, and a few more. Someday I'll build them up.
I have extra 3.12 Mhz crystals (rare) for the 256 chip if anyone wants one. $2 shipped.
I have run mine off a 3.whatever close-enough xtal ever since I got it. I wonder if it'll sound better with the proper xtal?
@Erco: Do you ever make it over to All Electronics? I'd buy three crystals from you if we could meet up. Or... I'll be on the west side on Saturday.
Jon
Jon: No, I'm down here in Torrance, don't make it up to All Elec. I'm not far from the TRW Swap meet for all my surplus/vintage electronics. PMing you now.
http://forums.parallax.com/showthread.php/134904-Voice-Synthesis-Chip-SP0256-AL2-SOURCE
That UK source still lists -256 chips for sale, FYI.
Genuine or counterfeit? Seller has 99.6% positive feedback. Who will answer the call?
Edit: There are about 5 different sellers. Here's a 5-pack for $47: http://www.ebay.com/itm/5pcs-SP0256A-AL2-SP0256A-SP0256AAL2-DIP-28-/261218825001?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cd1daf329#ht_424wt_1002
So what exactly does it mean that suddenly there is an abundance of these rare, obsolete chips in China? Has everyone simultaneously found dusty boxes of NOS that have been missing for some 30 years?
Just looked at those an hour ago. Feedback from all his buddies?
"Back in my day, we didn't have fancy EMIC-2 chips. You needed expensive ICs, lots of discretes, rare crystals, and a week to solder everthing together with LEAD solder. And something blew up the first time you powered it up from a single solder bridge. That's the way it was and we liked it!"
plus numerous PMs I've received about the 3.12 MHz crystals. I bought more, BTW, order all you want. And since SP0-256 chip sellers are popping up on Ebay from China, I suspect the next hot commodity will be the supporting TTS chip, the CTS0256-AL2, another obsolete and vintage Radio Shack part. They are apparently rarer than 3.12 crystals and hen's teeth combined; Ken at speechchips has been out of stock for a while. I just nabbed this one off Ebay, I recommend interested parties keep their eyes open for one too.
http://www.ebay.com/itm/271312141727
I guess next I'll corner the market in vintage TTS support chips.
Kneel before Zod! We will crush the son of our jailer!
I znozzed and did lozze.
Who would've thunk to look under Archer.
I've still got the '256 laying on a breadboard since I last touched it five or so years ago. This was after taking it off the original breadboard I used circa 1989 to interface it with my C<64
It was to be the voice of my butler robot, Edward Isaac Bot (so named by myself and my best friend who was building it with me). We never built it but came up with some fun designs.
Five years ago I got an Arduino driving it and was going to do something TTS-related but other things came up.
Some day I hope to build E.I.B. and put the 256 in there as its voice.
Thanks again for the xtal, that is most awesome.