Retro Computers

Micro Men, a film about Sir Clive, inventor of the Sinclair Spectrum, and Chris Curry, inventor of the BBC Micro and Acorn Electron, didn’t immediately sound like it was going to have mass appeal. It cued, in my mind, memories of the BBC’s 2008 documentary on The Making Of ELITE, in which John Snow tried his best to make two students writing mnemonics about wire-frame universes sound interesting; my girlfriend was asleep after about three minutes!

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Iv’e finally managed to have a play with the Acorn Speech system on my BBC Model B. Ive had these chips installed for some time, but ive never actually used them!

Sprow of http://www.sprow.co.uk/ says this about the speech system…

Texas Instruments created the TMS5220 voice synthesis processor as a means to add realistic speech output to home computers such as the BBC Micro, pinball machines, and children’s toys. It acts as a model of the human vocal tract which allows the speech data to be parameterised and hence compressed considerably compared with just storing raw audio samples.

The speech processor can accept data either from a host microprocessor, or from a mask programmed serial ROM – the TMS6100 voice synthesis memory. However, the high cost and minimum order quantities associated with the setup of a mask means that comparatively few TMS6100s were created, and being mask programmed are fixed in operation.

Texas Instruments created the TMS5220 voice synthesis processor as a means to add realistic speech output to home computers such as the BBC Micro, pinball machines, and children’s toys. It acts as a model of the human vocal tract which allows the speech data to be parameterised and hence compressed considerably compared with just storing raw audio samples.The speech processor can accept data either from a host microprocessor, or from a mask programmed serial ROM – the TMS6100 voice synthesis memory. However, the high cost and minimum order quantities associated with the setup of a mask means that comparatively few TMS6100s were created, and being mask programmed are fixed in operation.

This is a short audioboo shows you what speech can be produced. 

This file was recored from my BBC, this is not emulaton. This beeb has been modified to output audio to a phono lead than to its internal speaker. I then recored the audio on my MacBook Pro using Audacity.

A few people have now asked me where they can download DC.EXE. This application can convert .CAS tape files to .WAV files.

I have uploaded a copy of this application to http://www.retrocomputers.eu/files/dc.exe

Enjoy!

During my visit to the Computing Museum last weekend, I got to see a quite rare BBC Model B issue 1. Take a look at the photos below. Click the photo to see a higher resolution copy.

The PSU has been verified by Chris Turner to be one of the original prototpe PSU’s that shouldn’t really still be out in the wild. He thought they had replaced the few that were sold with proper production versions. Obviously not! It may be the only one in existance. The lid looks basically the same, but the stippling efect on the case is quite rough. Again one of the earliest low production mould tools were used before they really started to ramp up production.

Also, do you notice the lack of the analog port!

This is what Wikipedia has to say about this console.

In 1986, a new version of the 2600 was released (although it was planned for release two years earlier). The new redesigned version of the 2600, unofficially referred to as the 2600 Jr., featured a smaller cost-reduced form factor with a modernized Atari 7800-like appearance.

Ive picked up the following machines over the last few days. They are

• Atari 800
• BBC Model B with Econet
• Z80 Co Processor for the BBC Micro
• Commodore PC-I

Ive also managed to get ahold of a Multiface 2 for the Amstrad CPC. Ive wanted one of these since I was about 7. Im now 31!

The Multiface was a hardware peripheral released by Romantic Robot UK Ltd. for several 1980s home computers. The primary function of the device was to dump the computer’s memory to external storage, and featured an iconic ‘red button’ that could be pressed at any time in order to activate it. As most games of the era did not have a save game feature, the Multiface allowed players to save their position. However, this feature also allowed users to create backups or pirate copies of software. Copyright infringement was discouraged, yet possible in earlier models, but was made more difficult in later models by requiring the Multiface to be present when re-loading the dumps into memory.