Magnavox Odyssey II / Philips G7000 with BackBit Pro and The Voice Games!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 16 ก.ย. 2024
- Honestly, the Magnavox Odyssey II (here in a European PAL version, the Philips G7000) was underrated - some games are really fun! I recently got a BackBit Pro Cartridge, so I can finally enjoy the system a bit, and check out all the carts that are available. The BackBit also comes with an emulation of "The Voice". In this video I am demoing the voice games that were available for the system. "The Voice" is a surprisingly versatile speech synthesizer - based on the infamous GI SP0256-AL2, found in countless other speech extensions for all kinds of systems at that time (e.g., the DK'tronics speech synth for the Amstrad CPC, the Cheetah Sweet Talker for the Spectrum and others, and so on) The monotone speech is a defining characteristics of the SPO0256-AL2 - I was very surprised to hear some of the utterances produced by "The Voice" that actually sound more as if they were coming from a TMS5200 (TI 99/4a and Speak & Spell speech synth) - what a great intonation for some of the words! I wasn't aware that the SP0256-AL2 was so capable and flexible when it came to intonation. Great work - quite a capable voice module indeed!
EDIT: I just learned from @JohnJones-oy3md that "The Voice" actually contains a SP0256-019; from WikiPedia:
The Magnavox Odyssey²'s "The Voice" attachment uses the SP0256-019. This variant included the same allophones as the SP0256-AL2 (but an external ROM IC is required for the allophones), along with some Odyssey²-specific game phrases.
Now, that explains it! Thanks!
... huch, was ist denn das cooles. Davon habe ich noch nie was gehört, geschweige denn gesehen. man kann ja nicht alles haben. 😛 Danke für die Vorstellung. Coole Spiele.
The Magnavox used a bespoke SP0256-019 containing custom voice samples - that's why it sounds so good compared to a normal SP0256-AL2.
Ah! That makes a lot of sense now:
"The Magnavox Odyssey²'s "The Voice" attachment uses the SP0256-019. This variant included the same allophones as the SP0256-AL2 (but an external ROM IC is required for the allophones), along with some Odyssey²-specific game phrases." THANK YOU!
@@michaelwessel4953 These SP0256 speech chips were part of the soundtrack of my youth. I will always have a soft spot in my heart for them. Thank you for sharing your setup! 👍