Hi Gordon, The currah was a speech synth and spoke everything you typed and of course could be included within applications that supported it. From memory I think some text based adventures supported it. At the time I was sighted and had never heard of a screen reader. I was only 12 and quite immature I guess as myself and my friends would roll around laughing at hearing it swear.
Chris On 30 May 2012, at 19:34, Gordon Smith wrote: > Hi Chris > > Yes, but this wasn't a screen-reader, or was it? My own little sub-routine > utilised a little adapter and the Braid Systems speech synthesiser. It was a > lot more expensive than your own solution which, I confess, I've never heard > of until now. I am curious as to how this thing worked actually so maybe, > just maybe, there was a way of accessing the screen on the C64 which I wasn't > aware of. My own solution was very primitive, and there was no way to review > the screen's content in any other way than live. So you had to be on your > metal and listening intently to what was happening. There were also gaps > because the high graphic content of a lot of C64 software simply couldn't be > spoken properly. Those who used ASCII and ANSI to draw their graphics gave > me a huge problem because the synth would just speek nonsense when it > encountered those. > > Gordon > > On 30 May 2012, at 17:19, Chris Moore <[email protected]> wrote: > > I used to have Currah speech for the c64. It was a cartridge that had a din > cable coming out the back of it which you plugged into the audio 5 pin audio > in socket next to the cartridge slot of the C64. I think it cost £29 at the > time (1984) and you used the say command within your C64 basic to get it to > speak. > > You can hear a sample > at:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBx1nTcVPEU&feature=related > > > Chris > > > On 29 May 2012, at 16:55, Martin McCormick wrote: > >> I figured at the time that a person could write an >> interrupt service routine or an extra patch of code just as you >> described. >> >> The Apple II had an interrupt but nothing on board used >> it, not even the keyboard. I had a Mountain Hardware >> clock/calendar board plugged in to the mother board which >> actually did supply an interrupt once per second and I did play >> with it a bit, but you had to butcher up the clock board to get >> any more frequent interrupts than once per second and I just >> didn't see the value in that at the time. >> >> As for the access interface, I started out with a >> routine that fit in to low RAM which hooked the address for the >> screen buffer and converted all the data that could be converted >> in to Morse Code. That was sure a start since I already knew >> Morse, but the TSI speech board and the Votrax were each a big >> step up from the other. >> >> While we are on the topic, the sound generator in the >> C64 was spectacular compared with anything else at the time. The >> Apple II had a D-type flip-flop for both the loud speaker and >> for the cassette tape interface. To make sounds, you addressed >> which ever one of those devices you wanted and that would cause >> the strobe to pulse which stepped the flip-flop from the state >> it was in to the next state so, for example, to make a 1000 HZ >> tone, you wrote a counter routine to hit that address 2000 times >> a second which cycled it on then off, then on again for as many >> times as your counter was set to loop. >> >> The IBM P.C. systems had a slightly more versatile noise >> maker in that there was a programmable counter on a dedicated >> chip which you could set to a 16-bit number which determined the >> pitch of your tone. The counter/timer chip received a roughly >> 1-MHZ clock signal and your tones were whatever frequency you >> got by setting the counter to any number from 1 to 65535 with >> that value giving you a buzz around 25 or 30 HZ. >> >> The C64, on the other hand could have generated speech >> as it had a 3-voice chip as you mention below. >> >> Had my life gone a little differently, I probably would >> have been really proficient in the C64 as it was quite the >> machine in its day. >> >> You say, >> >>> As for the C64, I wrote a very rudimentary screen-reader which sat in RAM >>> at location 679 and dumped everything textually sent to the video port to >>> the C64's user port. In those days I had a little adapter which allowed >>> me to interface a "Braid System" speech synthesizer to the C64 using its >>> parallel input. The voice was dreadful, but not as bad as some of the >>> more modern software speech implementation, such as that horrible DecTalk >>> 32 that ships with Window-Eyes, and the DecTalk Express and DecTalk PC >>> which used to be quite popular for some reason. >> >> DecTalk always reminded me of somebody who had had a few >> too many or who had suffered some trauma that one might be >> curious about but prudence would keep one from asking any >> probing questions. >> >> You said, >> >>> The sound on the C64 was innovative for its day and could probably still >>> hold a >>> candle to some more modern hardware of its type. >> >> It definitely could. What we have here is evolution. DSP >> chips of which the C64's sound generator is one are an example >> of dedicated hardware doing one thing extremely well and it >> probably wouldn't be worth a darn doing anything else. >> >> It sounds like we were playing with similar toys in the >> eighties. I ended up learning the Motorola 68HC11 which is a >> digital controller chip. It is a 6800 processor with some >> timers, interrupts and an A/D converter. >> >> It had a monitor ROM one could use to develop >> assembly-level programs so you could use it to control whatever >> your imagination desired. The 68HC11 was originally designed to >> be the engine control unit in 1980's-era cars. >> >> I had a lot of fun playing with the 68HC11 as it was a >> lot like the 6502 except you could sure do a lot more addressing >> modes and therefore more powerful programming. >> >> So long for now. >> >> Martin >> >> ======================================= >> >> The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus >> and worm-free >> >> To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web >> pages located at >> http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat >> >> You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at >> either of the following websites: >> >> http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html >> >> Or: >> <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> >> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: >> <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> >> >> --------------------------------------- > > > ======================================= > > The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus > and worm-free > > To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web > pages located at > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at > either of the following websites: > > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html > > Or: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> > you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > > --------------------------------------- > > > ======================================= > > The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus > and worm-free > > To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web > pages located at > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat > > You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at > either of the following websites: > > http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html > > Or: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> > you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: > <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> > > --------------------------------------- ======================================= The Techno-Chat E-Mail forum is guaranteed malware, spyware, Trojan, virus and worm-free To modify your subscription options, please visit for forum's dedicated web pages located at http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/mailman/listinfo/techno-chat You can find an archive of all messages posted to the Techno-Chat group at either of the following websites: http://mail.tft-bbs.co.uk/pipermail/techno-chat/index.html Or: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]> you may also subscribe to this list via RSS. The feed is at: <http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/maillist.xml> ---------------------------------------
