That's a good guess! I couldn't make out what it was saying at all (not that I actually tried hard), but not being a native speaker of English, I don't know if that's normal.
I remember reading that Prof. Hawking declined to update his voice synthesizer, because he had grown accustomed to the voice and heard it as his own voice in his head.
He was basically using the same DECtalk he first got, until Intel built a replacement that could faithfully emulate a DECtalk. I think he only used the Intel one briefly, if at all, before he died.
My story about this cart, I had a dentist appointment as a kid and I was promised one of these carts. Can't remember if it was before or after the dentist, but we took it home and I couldn't talk well because I'd had an anaesthetic, so I used this cart to speak until it wore off. Well not really, we just took it home and I played with it. Of course, entering in all the swear words like a kid would :) Still remember the box with the clear front, big red and black surround. Of course later on you could do the same in software (SAM?), but that took up too much RAM for games. Not that many games support the Currah, I can't even remember any of them that did.
I still have the 48k spectrum version of this speech cartridge. On that one, theres a plug on a cable coming from it that goes into the TV output of the speccy, and an output jack on the cartridge itself to plug your TV cable into. If memory serves correct, it also used its output to give you speccy beeps from the TV speaker, which was an improvement. If they'd have included a kempston joystick interface within it too, it would have been a winner. But they didn't. So gaming was limited to keyboard controls only. There was a software cassette that came with it too, but I can't remember whats on it. It was a lot of fun though. I will have to dig out my box of Sinclair stuff at some point. The 'specdrum' by Cheetah software was also a neat bit of kit. A surprisingly usable programmable drum machine for the 48k Speccy.
I always love how back in the early 80s there was bugger all QA. So many things came out with shit spelling errors. Currah COMPUTORS? I have so many games from the time that have spelling errors galore and I find it hilarious and always have.
Hi! A friend of mine definitely has a copy of Easy Speech 64 lying around. I remember it quite vividly in his collection. I'll call him tomorrow and keep you posted. But I've no doubt it still has it in his possession. Great vid. Loved the Tom Scott/Steve Mould robot diss-track.
It reminds me of the electrolarynx device my grandfather used when I was little. It was easier to understand than this due to the way the device works, but it was still pretty rough.
As a kid I had a "Hearsay 1000" for my c64. I can still hear it in my head when you turned it on and it said, "hear-say one thou-sand" and when you disabled the mic it would say (with quick, evenly paced syllables throughout the whole sentence) "re-cog-nit-ion is now off".
Recently purchased a Amiga 500. Using the workbench text to speech. Calling my dogs name he came over. Calling his name with the text to speech. No reaction at all. So does show what they say that dogs recognise sounds rather than what the words mean
My school friend in the 80's got the Speccy version, (it sounded better than the C64 one), I had a copy of The War Of The Worlds on the Spectrum which uses the Currah Speach for the Martian voices. It was awesome. (at the time)
I used to do this with the "Say" program on the Amiga.....for a more authentic Stephen Hawking, use space and cosmology phrases like, "The origins of the universe" and "Super massive black holes".
I got he spo256 chip from Tandy radio shack and built a voice board from instructions from an Australian commodore magazine. Got pretty good in typing phonetically to get it to produce the right words
Love the channel - subbed, totally fantastic content! I think that the reason that game crashes might related to the version of the kernal or basic perhaps? That's just a guess, but I am thinking that's a possibility. I am not aware of different versions of the basic ROM, but there are kernal version differences.
The Spectrum version said "slash" rather than "divide". Which meant with key vocalisation turned on you could say "I'm just off to the bog..." and then type "FOR a/" and let the Spectrum finish the sentence for you. Which was side-splitting when you were 12.
The key-feedback feature might have been useful for blind people who wanted to use the computer for typing, if not for the fact that they'd still have to successfully type "INIT" silently before it would start working.
The synthetizer speaking with every keystroke feels like a primitive accessibility function. And like most accessibility functions, it's quite annoying to users that don't need them, which makes me believe it might have been just that!
What it says when you type a slash is probably a mispronunciation of "virgil", which is itself a misspelling of "virgule", a name for the slash. It sounds like "ver-Guile" which is about on par for Currah speech cart pronunciation. I love the TERTIARY lips on the Speech Messenger logo and the Easy Speech disk image. Those are gonna give me nightmares. All in all, the TI-99/4A speech synthesizer was, like, way better. 10 OPEN #1:"ALPHON", INTERNAL
I had one of these for the Spectrum. There were a few games I had that were compatible, but I cannot remember any of them or how good they were. It was mostly used to get it to say "oh shit" and other such intellectual utterings. 😁
Why not approach "8-Bit Show And Tell" about why Suicide Express crashed when using the Curra cart? If anyone can find out why then this guy is the one.
It will be something to do with RAM address allocation, which probably depends on how the ROM is programmed to arrange it. So, I'd guess that to fix the problem it might be fun to try different ROMs.
I'm wondering if the fact you are using a C64c rather than a 'breadbin' C64 is what's causing the crash. The SID chip was a later version, and had some tweaks. I don't know offhand if anything else is different between them. I had the Speech 64, and a little before that I had Commodore's Magic Voice cartridge; it had a pass-through port that let you plug cartridges in, and it provided speech for at least two games: Gorf and Wizard of Wor.
Coming two years after Software Automatic Mouth (SAM) could already produce intelligible speech with little to no user effort (though you could optionally do so)... I'm not exactly surprised this didn't do well. Having it not basically stall the system while running isn't exactly a worthwhile trade-off for it speaking gibberish.
Super Locomotive came first I'm pretty sure. Antony Crowther who wrote Suicide Express did three Super Locomotive style games for the C64, he must have liked it!
You might think that in order to let the recorded voice to say anything you want,you have to let the male or v male voice say all letters from the alphabet and all number,and then string those samples together in any order to let it say every possible word you want(rather then recorder any possible word wich would take a million times more space),now in order to let it say in any emotional way possible ,you could slowly alternate the pitch to simulate this effect,also you could also change the main pitch of a voice let’s say at pitch C and change it to a hicher C pitch or lower C pitch etc,,, And off course changing the speed of playback along with long pauses to make it sounding more natural, So there is potential in this device,HOWEVER this device is cheating since it does not use the C64’s sid chip ,so it would be unfair to call it a hardware pusher,but still trough this device was forward thinking ahead of time😁
I'm not impressed. Maybe back in the 80's I would have been, but SAM was better. Yes it used software synthesis and sounded scratchy as all hell but at least it was intelligible most of the time. Also Speech on the Amstrad CPC was a hair better too.
Hang on.... I swear my mates c64 had a speaking thing without this dongle- it was software...... and sounded better.... am I misremembering? About 25 year or more ago. You had to type litteral. Like Simon Would be symon.
Sounds like it's trying to say "divide" or "divide by" for the / key.
that would work as thats the divide by key on windows' calculators.
That's a good guess! I couldn't make out what it was saying at all (not that I actually tried hard), but not being a native speaker of English, I don't know if that's normal.
Yes, it's "divide"
I was wondering if it was trying to say “virgule” since that’s another word for the slash mark, but divide fits a lot better.
@@Larry And, more relevantly, in Commodore BASIC.
I remember reading that Prof. Hawking declined to update his voice synthesizer, because he had grown accustomed to the voice and heard it as his own voice in his head.
He was basically using the same DECtalk he first got, until Intel built a replacement that could faithfully emulate a DECtalk. I think he only used the Intel one briefly, if at all, before he died.
My story about this cart, I had a dentist appointment as a kid and I was promised one of these carts. Can't remember if it was before or after the dentist, but we took it home and I couldn't talk well because I'd had an anaesthetic, so I used this cart to speak until it wore off. Well not really, we just took it home and I played with it. Of course, entering in all the swear words like a kid would :)
Still remember the box with the clear front, big red and black surround. Of course later on you could do the same in software (SAM?), but that took up too much RAM for games. Not that many games support the Currah, I can't even remember any of them that did.
I think the forward slash is trying to say “divide”
I still have the 48k spectrum version of this speech cartridge. On that one, theres a plug on a cable coming from it that goes into the TV output of the speccy, and an output jack on the cartridge itself to plug your TV cable into. If memory serves correct, it also used its output to give you speccy beeps from the TV speaker, which was an improvement. If they'd have included a kempston joystick interface within it too, it would have been a winner. But they didn't. So gaming was limited to keyboard controls only. There was a software cassette that came with it too, but I can't remember whats on it. It was a lot of fun though. I will have to dig out my box of Sinclair stuff at some point. The 'specdrum' by Cheetah software was also a neat bit of kit. A surprisingly usable programmable drum machine for the 48k Speccy.
03:40 "Divided" (it's a division symbol)
I always love how back in the early 80s there was bugger all QA. So many things came out with shit spelling errors.
Currah COMPUTORS? I have so many games from the time that have spelling errors galore and I find it hilarious and always have.
Yes i love it too, was saying this to my girlfriend the other day who to be honest didn't share your enthusiasm.
Before spellcheck software was ubiquitous.
Hi!
A friend of mine definitely has a copy of Easy Speech 64 lying around. I remember it quite vividly in his collection. I'll call him tomorrow and keep you posted. But I've no doubt it still has it in his possession.
Great vid. Loved the Tom Scott/Steve Mould robot diss-track.
"By your command! Exterminate the humans! Destroy the Galactica!"
I remember a C64 mag here in the UK released a software only speech synth on their cover tape
Must have ran the Sid waves through a formant filter algorithm.
The forward slash is also known as a 'virgule' which is maybe what it was trying to say.
Ah, the Currah Microspeech. Fun for this dorky kid messing around with his Speccy in the 80s.
N-N-N-N-N-N-N-NORT! DIL-DIL-DIL-DIL-DIL-DIL-DELETE!
I laughed my ass of thinking at first that the forward slash key sounded almost like it was saying "Sieg Heil ". Probably saying divide though.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who heard that and laughed
It reminds me of the electrolarynx device my grandfather used when I was little. It was easier to understand than this due to the way the device works, but it was still pretty rough.
Amazing. Hard to believe this never caught on.
As a kid I had a "Hearsay 1000" for my c64. I can still hear it in my head when you turned it on and it said, "hear-say one thou-sand" and when you disabled the mic it would say (with quick, evenly paced syllables throughout the whole sentence) "re-cog-nit-ion is now off".
I imagine it was called Hearsay because it was about as accurate as hearsay
It's saying "divide" on the slash. My Speccy version use to say the same back in the day....
A bit late to the party, but Cad-Cam Warrior had support for Currah Speech too. I had both back in the day.
Flogged one last year , but was for speccy I think. Was definitely a Currah. Boxed etc. Nice little device.
11:50 Lunar Jetman was another Sinclair Spectrum game that used to work with the Currah u Speech from what I can remember.
Recently purchased a Amiga 500. Using the workbench text to speech. Calling my dogs name he came over. Calling his name with the text to speech. No reaction at all. So does show what they say that dogs recognise sounds rather than what the words mean
My school friend in the 80's got the Speccy version, (it sounded better than the C64 one), I had a copy of The War Of The Worlds on the Spectrum which uses the Currah Speach for the Martian voices. It was awesome. (at the time)
Was there ever an Amstrad equliviant?
I think there was, but there's not much mention of it online.
Ahh, we have a visitor, stay a while, stay forever
I used to do this with the "Say" program on the Amiga.....for a more authentic Stephen Hawking, use space and cosmology phrases like, "The origins of the universe" and "Super massive black holes".
I made me recall "The Voice" for Odyssey²
Making it try to say Hong Kong was always hilarious
I got he spo256 chip from Tandy radio shack and built a voice board from instructions from an Australian commodore magazine.
Got pretty good in typing phonetically to get it to produce the right words
Love the channel - subbed, totally fantastic content! I think that the reason that game crashes might related to the version of the kernal or basic perhaps? That's just a guess, but I am thinking that's a possibility. I am not aware of different versions of the basic ROM, but there are kernal version differences.
It appears Tom Scott hasn't commented so far.
Obviously showering
I had the Speccy version. Looking forward to the video for that.
The Spectrum version said "slash" rather than "divide". Which meant with key vocalisation turned on you could say "I'm just off to the bog..." and then type "FOR a/" and let the Spectrum finish the sentence for you. Which was side-splitting when you were 12.
The key-feedback feature might have been useful for blind people who wanted to use the computer for typing, if not for the fact that they'd still have to successfully type "INIT" silently before it would start working.
Wait… is this a face reveal? Never seen you do a selfie video before, but might have missed it.
take a look at his profile picture
The synthetizer speaking with every keystroke feels like a primitive accessibility function. And like most accessibility functions, it's quite annoying to users that don't need them, which makes me believe it might have been just that!
I guess they got inspired by the Speak and Spell saying the letters as you typed.
Essential kit if you want to play as Prof Falken.
What it says when you type a slash is probably a mispronunciation of "virgil", which is itself a misspelling of "virgule", a name for the slash. It sounds like "ver-Guile" which is about on par for Currah speech cart pronunciation.
I love the TERTIARY lips on the Speech Messenger logo and the Easy Speech disk image. Those are gonna give me nightmares.
All in all, the TI-99/4A speech synthesizer was, like, way better. 10 OPEN #1:"ALPHON", INTERNAL
All mine ever said was - 'Thermo Nuclear War', it worked for me!!
paaahaaahaaaaaaa i'm literally sat here crying laughing, poor tom scott !!!!!!!! :D
What the hell ?!? Fave reveal! So you're not Mark Radcliffe after all?!?! Great vid as always 😅
First face reveal was a while ago, but no one cared!
We used to use Say on the Amiga to sound like Stephen Hawking.
I had one of these for the Spectrum. There were a few games I had that were compatible, but I cannot remember any of them or how good they were. It was mostly used to get it to say "oh shit" and other such intellectual utterings. 😁
Sharo.... you never fail to amaze me with such....eŕrr....junk?!
Love the limit pushing vids btw
KOFF :D That's a Finnish beer brand. Time for a beer!
Why not approach "8-Bit Show And Tell" about why Suicide Express crashed when using the Curra cart? If anyone can find out why then this guy is the one.
It will be something to do with RAM address allocation, which probably depends on how the ROM is programmed to arrange it. So, I'd guess that to fix the problem it might be fun to try different ROMs.
I'm wondering if the fact you are using a C64c rather than a 'breadbin' C64 is what's causing the crash. The SID chip was a later version, and had some tweaks. I don't know offhand if anything else is different between them.
I had the Speech 64, and a little before that I had Commodore's Magic Voice cartridge; it had a pass-through port that let you plug cartridges in, and it provided speech for at least two games: Gorf and Wizard of Wor.
Good point, I never thought of that.
@@Sharopolis This device doesn't use the SID, though. And the game worked without the Speech 64.
Mine has gone a bit screwy with hilarious results now.
Hi, The forward slash sounds like 'midnight' to me.
Coming two years after Software Automatic Mouth (SAM) could already produce intelligible speech with little to no user effort (though you could optionally do so)... I'm not exactly surprised this didn't do well. Having it not basically stall the system while running isn't exactly a worthwhile trade-off for it speaking gibberish.
Suicide Express looks like a clone of Sega's Super Locomotive? Not sure on which way round they emerged though.
Super Locomotive came first I'm pretty sure. Antony Crowther who wrote Suicide Express did three Super Locomotive style games for the C64, he must have liked it!
@@Sharopolis Suicide Express was a spiritual sequel to Loco. What was the 3rd one?
On ZX Spectrum I have program that emu robotic voice thru beeper with same result or better))
That barratone voice. Why did you not get it to say "By your command" it is so the cylon voice off battle star galactica.
Excellent
Maybe try SAM?
C64 sonic next?
You might think that in order to let the recorded voice to say anything you want,you have to let the male or v male voice say all letters from the alphabet and all number,and then string those samples together in any order to let it say every possible word you want(rather then recorder any possible word wich would take a million times more space),now in order to let it say in any emotional way possible ,you could slowly alternate the pitch to simulate this effect,also you could also change the main pitch of a voice let’s say at pitch C and change it to a hicher C pitch or lower C pitch etc,,,
And off course changing the speed of playback along with long pauses to make it sounding more natural,
So there is potential in this device,HOWEVER this device is cheating since it does not use the C64’s sid chip ,so it would be unfair to call it a hardware pusher,but still trough this device was forward thinking ahead of time😁
0:38 It's "divide", as in "÷".
Good point, thanks!
👍😁😜😜😁👍 Interesting device... 8-bit computers are the best! 👍🥃☕🍷🍺🏆👍
I'm not impressed. Maybe back in the 80's I would have been, but SAM was better. Yes it used software synthesis and sounded scratchy as all hell but at least it was intelligible most of the time. Also Speech on the Amstrad CPC was a hair better too.
I have that thing.
Now compare those two with the "say"-Program of the Amiga...
More low-budget Cylon than Hawking, really...
We really were early adopters of shite tech, in the 80s.
When you say the C64 had OK speech without this, what you really mean is FM radio quality playback:
/watch?v=cKwLkNoySI4
/ = Divide
Hang on.... I swear my mates c64 had a speaking thing without this dongle- it was software...... and sounded better.... am I misremembering?
About 25 year or more ago.
You had to type litteral.
Like Simon
Would be symon.
This was maybe : SAM
@@chris-do sounds familiar
This is worse than the Odyssey2 voice attachment.
Lol