From: william.hamblen@nashville.com (William Hamblen) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 01:07:10 GMT Organization: Utterly Disorganized. Lines: 7 Message-ID: <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> Reply-To: william.hamblen@nashville.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!isdnet!remarQ-easT!rQdQ!supernews.com!remarQ.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail On 26 Oct 1999 14:16:14 -0400, Greg Menke wrote: >Colossus was the name? Wasn't that the machine that had speech recognition, but not speech generation? ###### From: "Jack Peacock" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 15:14:26 -0700 Organization: Simco Lines: 23 Message-ID: References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Newsreader: Microsoft Outlook Express 5.00.2314.1300 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V5.00.2314.1300 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!195.224.165.20.MISMATCH!remarQ-uK!rQdQ!supernews.com!remarQ.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail fungus wrote in message news:38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com... > The classic scene where the kid says to the girl "Hey, you wanna hear > it speak?" and plugs in some sort of speech synthesiser. > > All well and good so far - except that every green-screen ASCII > terminal in the rest of the movie also speaks "in exactly the > same voice!) > Well, yes, IIRC the most common synthesizer was the Vortrax unit, at least using a serial output from an S100 or a terminal. Same chip, a phoneme generator, so the voice would tend to sound the same too. I believe the computer effects in Wargames were done with Godbout S100 systems, except for the "star" IMSAI with it's photogenic front panel, so it's logical the synthesized voices all came from the same box. I built a demo once using the chip inside the Vortrax (SP01????), I had to make a small single board machine speak Arabic. How good was the quality? No idea, I don't speak Arabic, I just copied the phonemes from a dictionary. It didn't really sound like a mullah but I guess it was close enough, customer liked it but never bought the project. Jack Peacock ###### From: mww@merant.com (Michael Wojcik) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 27 Oct 1999 16:09:30 GMT Organization: MERANT Inc. Lines: 27 Message-ID: <7v783q$2fu0@news2.newsguy.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> Reply-To: michael.wojcik@merant.com NNTP-Posting-Host: p-594.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: xrn 9.00 Originator: mww@lorelei-n Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!howland.erols.net!nntp2.lotsanews.com.MISMATCH!pln-e!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!mww In article <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com>, william.hamblen@nashville.com (William Hamblen) writes: > On 26 Oct 1999 14:16:14 -0400, Greg Menke wrote: > > >Colossus was the name? > > Wasn't that the machine that had speech recognition, but not speech > generation? As does Star Wars' R2-D2. Since the folks in the story clearly have speech generation technology, I suspect they just got tired of talking computers. They keep a few (more or less) anthropomorphic ones around because they're too lazy to read, but aside from that they like to talk to their computers without them talking back. (And hey, this is on-topic. The story is set "long, long ago".) -- Michael Wojcik michael.wojcik@merant.com AAI Development, MERANT (block capitals are a company mandate) Department of English, Miami University Most people believe that anything that is true is true for a reason. These theorems show that some things are true for no reason at all, i.e., accidentally, or at random. -- G J Chaitin ###### From: fungus Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Wed, 27 Oct 1999 19:40:33 +0200 Organization: Iddeo - Retevisión Lines: 27 Message-ID: <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: 62.82.228.55 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.7 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.icl.net!colt.net!newspeer.clara.net!news.clara.net!bignews.mediaways.net!newsfeed.nettuno.it!server-b.cs.interbusiness.it!news-1.retevision.es!news.iddeo.es!not-for-mail William Hamblen wrote: > > On 26 Oct 1999 14:16:14 -0400, Greg Menke wrote: > > >Colossus was the name? > > Wasn't that the machine that had speech recognition, but not speech > generation? Remember War Games? The classic scene where the kid says to the girl "Hey, you wanna hear it speak?" and plugs in some sort of speech synthesiser. All well and good so far - except that every green-screen ASCII terminal in the rest of the movie also speaks "in exactly the same voice!) -- <\___/> / O O \ \_____/ FTB. ###### From: greg@apple2.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Message-ID: References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> Organization: II Infinitum X-Newsreader: MT-NewsWatcher 2.4.4 X-Face: &@UA7$)=n9C7!qu%-5s},3tR@NEy+B>8PW"^,8?A>%."0{J2c1Yr]NKw';5/( J\r@/{UADjCdE~iRnOEOfbre(/1Y=$TS3Wt7B`a4sz,, "Jack Peacock" wrote: >fungus wrote: Does Hormel Foods know you're sending them the UCE intended for you? They own the spam.com domain. >> The classic scene where the kid says to the girl "Hey, you wanna hear >> it speak?" and plugs in some sort of speech synthesiser. >> >> All well and good so far - except that every green-screen ASCII >> terminal in the rest of the movie also speaks "in exactly the >> same voice!) > Well, yes, IIRC the most common synthesizer was the Vortrax unit, at > least using a serial output from an S100 or a terminal. Same chip, a > phoneme generator, so the voice would tend to sound the same too. I > believe the computer effects in Wargames were done with Godbout S100 > systems, except for the "star" IMSAI with it's photogenic front panel, > so it's logical the synthesized voices all came from the same box. Except that the voice of the SIOP (WOPR) in all scenes was actually that of John Wood (Dr. Stephen Falken) reading dialog backwards so that he'd speak it in a rather flat manner. Not really backwards, but reading the sentences in reverse word order. "Want you do side which?" The sound-fx people rearranged the words and processed it to get the electronic effect. (You may have noted that the same words are pronounced differently at different times in the film.) It was much like a system that used sampled phonemes and then assembled them into words, except here entire words were sampled and they were assembled into sentences. This information comes from the director's and writers' commentary on the WarGames DVD, audio track 3, chapter 11, time index 00:40:06 to 00:42:18, ending just inside chapter 12. The most pertinent part is actually at the start of chapter 12. In that range is also a mention of the conceptual problem of the voice following Matthew Broderick (David Lightman) into the War room twice later in the film. I love the extras on DVDs! -- -- --- -- -- -- ------------------------------------------------------------------ -- -- --- --- ###### From: Dennis Ritchie Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 03:04:30 +0100 Organization: Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies Lines: 33 Message-ID: <3817AF2E.3A17@bell-labs.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> Reply-To: dmr@bell-labs.com NNTP-Posting-Host: cebu.cs.bell-labs.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01 (Win95; U) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeed.nacamar.de!wn4feed!wn3feed!worldnet.att.net!207.24.196.41!nntphub.cb.lucent.com!news Jack Peacock wrote: ... > Well, yes, IIRC the most common synthesizer was the Vortrax unit, at > least using a serial output from an S100 or a terminal. Same chip, a > phoneme generator, so the voice would tend to sound the same too. I > believe the computer effects in Wargames were done with Godbout S100 > systems, except for the "star" IMSAI with it's photogenic front panel, > so it's logical the synthesized voices all came from the same box. That would be Votrax, originally and for a while manufactured by (of all places) Federal Screw Works, located in Detroit. I have the 1973 Unix manual page for speak(IV) from August 1973 for a program that drives it, as well as the Sept 1973 page for vs(VII) about its device driver. The version we had then used an approx. 10x20x2 cm circuit board that was cast into a monolithic block of plastic, presumably to evade reverse-engineering. It had many discrete components (I recall seeing one of them cracked open). Later versions used ICs. I looked up "Federal Screw Works" on the usual engines and they don't seem to have a WWW page, though there is someone who was offering some of their later synthesizers (SC-01) in small quantities, and there are some memoires about Votrax. Still, it was amusing to find that among the top Altavista hits were transcripts of "The Oral Remarks of John O'Brien" of F. S. W. before a congressional committee. Dennis ###### From: ignatios@cs.uni-bonn.de (Ignatios Souvatzis) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Supersedes: <7v78s4$mu2@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> Date: 28 Oct 1999 11:24:40 GMT Organization: RHRZ - University of Bonn (Germany) Lines: 20 Message-ID: <7v9bpo$emm@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <7v78s4$mu2@news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: cauchy.cs.uni-bonn.de Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Newsreader: knews 0.9.8 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newscore.univie.ac.at!fu-berlin.de!news.rwth-aachen.de!news.rhrz.uni-bonn.de!usenet In article <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com>, william.hamblen@nashville.com (William Hamblen) writes: > On 26 Oct 1999 14:16:14 -0400, Greg Menke wrote: > >>Colossus was the name? > > Wasn't that the machine that had speech recognition, but not speech > generation? Reminds me of my little son, a year ago. He understood everything, but sometimes pretended not to, and it was difficult to prove otherwise, because he didn't speak much more than "no", "hot", and "ouch". I strongly suspect he did this on purpose. -is -- * Progress (n.): The process through which Usenet has evolved from smart people in front of dumb terminals to dumb people in front of smart terminals. -- obs@burnout.demon.co.uk (obscurity) ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Message-ID: <01bf2165$9a688da0$e12ac222@my0250> From: "Rkazas" Date: 28 Oct 99 11:58:07 CST References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com><381 47DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com><38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.sp am.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34> NNTP-Posting-Host: my0250.mwk.com X-Newsreader: Microsoft Internet News 4.70.1162 Lines: 31 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!hermes.visi.com!news-out.visi.com!cam-news-hub1.bbnplanet.com!atl-news-feed1.bbnplanet.com!news.gtei.net!mwk!nntp Was it the one that when no one was playing every once in a while go " Insert Coin" ? I remember that no other game talked on that days, and it was kinda scary rkazas Dave Hansen wrote in article <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34>... > On 28 Oct 1999 13:46:05 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: > > [...] > I remember a space-type shoot-em-up video game popular in the early > 80's timeframe that I think used the Votrax chip. I think it was > called "Gorf" (I said I remembered the game, not its name...). Many > people had a hard time understanding what it was saying, but I don't > remember having too much trouble with it. > > My favorite bit was when the enemy suceeded in shooting you down. It > would taunt you with "Bad move, Space Cadet. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah." I used > that as an error message once. (in an internal application, of > course). > > Regards, > > -=Dave > Just my (10-010) cents > I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree. > Change is inevitable. Progress is not. > ###### From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 28 Oct 1999 13:46:05 GMT Organization: IBM Austin Lines: 40 Message-ID: <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> Reply-To: wa4qal@vnet.ibm.net NNTP-Posting-Host: glass2.cv.lexington.ibm.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!logbridge.uoregon.edu!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!tivoli.com!ausnews.austin.ibm.com!not-for-mail In , "Jack Peacock" writes: >fungus wrote in message >news:38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com... >> The classic scene where the kid says to the girl "Hey, you wanna hear >> it speak?" and plugs in some sort of speech synthesiser. >> >> All well and good so far - except that every green-screen ASCII >> terminal in the rest of the movie also speaks "in exactly the >> same voice!) >> >Well, yes, IIRC the most common synthesizer was the Vortrax unit, at >least using a serial output from an S100 or a terminal. Same chip, a >phoneme generator, so the voice would tend to sound the same too. I >believe the computer effects in Wargames were done with Godbout S100 >systems, except for the "star" IMSAI with it's photogenic front panel, >so it's logical the synthesized voices all came from the same box. > >I built a demo once using the chip inside the Vortrax (SP01????), I had >to make a small single board machine speak Arabic. How good was the >quality? No idea, I don't speak Arabic, I just copied the phonemes from >a dictionary. It didn't really sound like a mullah but I guess it was >close enough, customer liked it but never bought the project. > Jack Peacock > Was that box based on the General Instruments chip set? That SP01 number sounds familar. If I remember right, there was a synthesizer chip, and another chip used as the phonem memory. If that's the one I'm thinking of, I think I still have that chip set stashed somewhere around here in unused condition (Too many projects, too little time.). I remember the Votrax unit. We had one in the lab in the early 1980s. It had quite an accent, but you could understand it after some practice. What we found hilarious was that it seemed to be able to say cuss words best of all. :*) Dave P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them. ###### From: dhansen@btree.com (Dave Hansen) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Organization: B-Tree Systems, Inc. Message-ID: <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Free Agent 1.11/32.235 Lines: 25 Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 15:45:38 GMT NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.32.152.113 X-Trace: newsfeed.slurp.net 941125292 209.32.152.113 (Thu, 28 Oct 1999 10:41:32 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 10:41:32 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!feed2.news.luth.se!luth.se!news-peer-europe.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!netnews.com!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.slurp.net!not-for-mail On 28 Oct 1999 13:46:05 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: [...] >I remember the Votrax unit. We had one in the lab in the early 1980s. >It had quite an accent, but you could understand it after some practice. >What we found hilarious was that it seemed to be able to say cuss words >best of all. :*) I remember a space-type shoot-em-up video game popular in the early 80's timeframe that I think used the Votrax chip. I think it was called "Gorf" (I said I remembered the game, not its name...). Many people had a hard time understanding what it was saying, but I don't remember having too much trouble with it. My favorite bit was when the enemy suceeded in shooting you down. It would taunt you with "Bad move, Space Cadet. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah." I used that as an error message once. (in an internal application, of course). Regards, -=Dave Just my (10-010) cents I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree. Change is inevitable. Progress is not. ###### From: nailed_barnacleSPAMFREE@hotmail.com (barnacle) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Thu, 28 Oct 1999 18:13:37 GMT Organization: [posted via Easynet Ltd] Lines: 34 Message-ID: <7va3ou$1qh4$1@quince.news.easynet.net> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34> NNTP-Posting-Host: nbarnes.easynet.co.uk X-Trace: quince.news.easynet.net 941134430 59940 194.154.98.206 (28 Oct 1999 18:13:50 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@easynet.net NNTP-Posting-Date: 28 Oct 1999 18:13:50 GMT X-Newsreader: News Xpress 2.01 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!diablo.theplanet.net!newspeer.ebone.net!easynet-tele!easynet.net!quince.news.easynet.net!egbert In article <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34>, dhansen@btree.com (Dave Hansen) wrote: >On 28 Oct 1999 13:46:05 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: > >[...] >>I remember the Votrax unit. We had one in the lab in the early 1980s. >>It had quite an accent, but you could understand it after some practice. >>What we found hilarious was that it seemed to be able to say cuss words >>best of all. :*) > >I remember a space-type shoot-em-up video game popular in the early >80's timeframe that I think used the Votrax chip. I think it was >called "Gorf" (I said I remembered the game, not its name...). Many >people had a hard time understanding what it was saying, but I don't >remember having too much trouble with it. > >My favorite bit was when the enemy suceeded in shooting you down. It >would taunt you with "Bad move, Space Cadet. Ah-ah-ah-ah-ah." I used >that as an error message once. (in an internal application, of >course). > Loved that game...spent far too much playing it.."some space cadet you are..." >Regards, > > -=Dave >Just my (10-010) cents >I can barely speak for myself, so I certainly can't speak for B-Tree. >Change is inevitable. Progress is not. -- barnacle http://www.nbarnes.easynet.co.uk ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 28 Oct 99 20:55:22 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 20 Message-ID: <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-363.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.6 (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!pln-e!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news1 In article <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> spam@egg.chips.and.spam.com (fungus) writes: >Remember War Games? > >The classic scene where the kid says to the girl "Hey, you wanna hear >it speak?" and plugs in some sort of speech synthesiser. > >All well and good so far - except that every green-screen ASCII >terminal in the rest of the movie also speaks "in exactly the >same voice!) I wanted an acoustic coupler like the one attached to that IMSAI. Judging from the screen refreshes, I'd say it was running at about 9600 bps. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: "Charlie Gibbs" Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 28 Oct 99 20:59:55 -0800 Organization: http://extra.newsguy.com Lines: 14 Message-ID: <465.970T2780T12596429cgibbs@sky.bus.com> References: <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com><38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34> <01bf2165$9a688da0$e12ac222@my0250> NNTP-Posting-Host: p-364.newsdawg.com X-Newsreader: THOR 2.6 (Amiga;TCP/IP) Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!pln-e!spln!extra.newsguy.com!newsp.newsguy.com!news1 In article <01bf2165$9a688da0$e12ac222@my0250> rkazas@hotmail.com (Rkazas) writes: >Was it the one that when no one was playing every once in a while go " >Insert Coin" ? The pinball game "Xenon" (made by Bally, I think) gave a wonderfully sexy sigh whenever you dropped in a coin. Not to mention the way it would seductively say, "Try me again," at the end of a game. -- cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. ###### From: jvarela@mind-spring.com (John Varela) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 29 Oct 1999 00:24:04 GMT Organization: MindSpring Enterprises Lines: 11 Message-ID: References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <3817AF2E.3A17@bell-labs.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: a5.f7.48.f4 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: ProNews/2 Version 1.50 Beta 1 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!newsfeed.axxsys.net!remarQ-easT!remarQ.com!supernews.com!news.mindspring.net!newsfeed.mindspring.net!firehose.mindspring.com!not-for-mail On Thu, 28 Oct 1999 02:04:30, Dennis Ritchie wrote: > That would be Votrax I think I remember that. Did it speak in what could be described as a vaguely East European accent? -- John Varela to e-mail, remove - between mind and spring ###### Message-ID: <3819ACCD.7B631726@iedu.org> From: Morris Dovey Organization: http://www.iedu.org/mrd X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.61 [en] (X11; U; Linux 2.0.36 i686) X-Accept-Language: en, fr, pt, ru, es MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> <7vc6hj$il4$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 17 Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 09:18:53 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 207.108.37.10 X-Trace: news.uswest.net 941206855 207.108.37.10 (Fri, 29 Oct 1999 09:20:55 CDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 09:20:55 CDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news-out.uswest.net!news.uswest.net!not-for-mail glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: > > Hmm, could an IMSAI even do 9600 baud? I remember using a 9600 baud > modem on an 4.77 MHz XT, and it would ocassionally suffer buffer > overruns and drop characters. Dave... I ran /two/ terminals off my IMSAI 8080 (upgraded to Z80) at 9600 baud without problem. One terminal was a "glass teletype" (ADM-3) and the other was an IBM-3101 operating in block mode. They were, of course, interrupt driven by a home-grown (CP/M) BIOS. Perhaps something was lost in the transliteration of CP/M to MS-DOS? Morris Dovey West Des Moines, Iowa USA ###### From: glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 29 Oct 1999 13:13:23 GMT Organization: IBM Austin Lines: 36 Message-ID: <7vc6hj$il4$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> Reply-To: wa4qal@vnet.ibm.net NNTP-Posting-Host: glass2.cv.lexington.ibm.com X-Newsreader: IBM NewsReader/2 2.0 Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-spur1.maxwell.syr.edu!news.maxwell.syr.edu!cs.utexas.edu!geraldo.cc.utexas.edu!tivoli.com!ausnews.austin.ibm.com!not-for-mail In <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com>, "Charlie Gibbs" writes: >In article <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> >spam@egg.chips.and.spam.com (fungus) writes: > >>Remember War Games? >> >>The classic scene where the kid says to the girl "Hey, you wanna hear >>it speak?" and plugs in some sort of speech synthesiser. >> >>All well and good so far - except that every green-screen ASCII >>terminal in the rest of the movie also speaks "in exactly the >>same voice!) > >I wanted an acoustic coupler like the one attached to that IMSAI. >Judging from the screen refreshes, I'd say it was running at about >9600 bps. > >-- >cgibbs@sky.bus.com (Charlie Gibbs) >Remove the first period after the "at" sign to reply. > Well, every acoustic coupler I ever used was 300 baud, and no one wanted to use one of those if they could avoid it. I would often drive 30 minutes (each way) to run a job on a locally attached (high speed) terminal, just so I didn't have to fustrate myself with a 300 baud connection. Hmm, could an IMSAI even do 9600 baud? I remember using a 9600 baud modem on an 4.77 MHz XT, and it would ocassionally suffer buffer overruns and drop characters. Dave P.S. Standard Disclaimer: I work for them, but I don't speak for them. ###### Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!usenet From: Neil Franklin Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 29 Oct 1999 22:10:18 +0200 Organization: My own Private Self Lines: 25 Sender: neil@chonsp.franklin.ch Message-ID: <6ud7ty2aj9.fsf@chonsp.franklin.ch> References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> <7vc6hj$il4$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <3819ACCD.7B631726@iedu.org> X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.3/Emacs 19.34 Morris Dovey writes: > > glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: > > > > modem on an 4.77 MHz XT, and it would ocassionally suffer buffer > > Perhaps something was lost in the transliteration of CP/M to MS-DOS? You mean in transliteration from CP/M to PC BIOS. MS-DOS COMx: are simply an interface to the PC BIOS, which does all the hard work. And IBM has admitted that the BIOS was thrown together very quickly, on the assumption that it could be rewritten later. "Features" include one BIOS System call per character to fetch. That is most likely why I had no trouble doing PPP at 38400 on an 386-16 running Linux (with all the multitasking and 386 protected mode overhead) without an 16550 in sight and while doing Netscape 2 on X on the console. Yes, that was once my only surf machine. -- Neil Franklin, neil@franklin.ch.remove http://neil.franklin.ch/ ###### Message-ID: <3819CBBF.6D97C5F@thinkage.on.ca> From: "Alan T. Bowler" X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.5 [en] (WinNT; U) X-Accept-Language: en MIME-Version: 1.0 Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> <7vc6hj$il4$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 13 Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 12:30:55 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 192.102.11.4 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 941214624 192.102.11.4 (Fri, 29 Oct 1999 12:30:24 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 12:30:24 EDT Organization: UUNET Canada News Reader Service Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!cyclone.bc.net!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: > > > > Well, every acoustic coupler I ever used was 300 baud, and no one > wanted to use one of those if they could avoid it. I would often > drive 30 minutes (each way) to run a job on a locally attached > (high speed) terminal, just so I didn't have to fustrate myself with > a 300 baud connection. For a while there where two 1200 protocols. (Bell 212?) and one from Anderson-Jacobsen/Racal-Vadic (3400?) there were acoustic couplers for the Vadic protocol. ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) From: enochamr@sgci.com.spamstopper (Douglas Taylor) Message-ID: <1e0er4f.1psaowvo4f7pcN@ppp048.sgci.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34> <01bf2165$9a688da0$e12ac222@my0250> Organization: Department of Redundancy Department X-Face: &Yq:48^un2BRIr~6<_:iXVI\cqLY"Klhd072%PfzXP#y~t:JUM"\+CEq;0+\v |o$2\[bew94bLZk(+'x{e31}frl?=pJ5nSy8[2Sua)PWGATvi86ggu:psyu+20TZv9Ic @.uJnmp>0l-p9AWElB=yz)g#lPPP)O;)(''#1!hNy3iCis!=%zHFT1iy X-Newsreader: MacSOUP 2.3.3 Lines: 16 Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 23:27:17 -0500 NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.167.75.81 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 941253987 209.167.75.81 (Fri, 29 Oct 1999 23:26:27 EDT) NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 29 Oct 1999 23:26:27 EDT Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!naxos.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-FFM2.ecrc.net!sunqbc.risq.qc.ca!cyclone.bc.net!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!enochamr Rkazas wrote: > Was it the one that when no one was playing every once in a while go " > Insert Coin" ? > > I remember that no other game talked on that days, and it was kinda scary The only other one that comes to mind is Robotron 2084 (?), though I'm not sure if Gorf predates it or not, nor which hardware it used for speech synth. My son looks at me strangely when I interrupt his N64 game playing with "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" and "Chicken! Fight like a Robot!" -- If you want to reply privately, be sure to remove the ".spamstopper" from my address. ###### From: william.hamblen@nashville.com (William Hamblen) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1999 01:20:19 GMT Organization: Utterly Disorganized. Lines: 18 Message-ID: <381f4555.74108248@news.nashville.com> References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> <7vc6hj$il4$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> Reply-To: william.hamblen@nashville.com X-Complaints-To: newsabuse@supernews.com X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.5/32.452 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!newsswitch.lcs.mit.edu!remarQ-easT!rQdQ!supernews.com!remarQ.com!corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail On 29 Oct 1999 13:13:23 GMT, glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com wrote: >Hmm, could an IMSAI even do 9600 baud? I remember using a 9600 baud >modem on an 4.77 MHz XT, and it would ocassionally suffer buffer >overruns and drop characters. Probably. I had an SwTPC 6800 with an _890_ kHz 6800 that would do 9600 bps with a plain 6850 ACIA using interrupt driven I/O instead of polling the part. Output was to memory mapped video. The trick was to have a big enough buffer in memory so it wouldn't overflow when scrolling the screen up. I didn't do any particular tricks to speed up the code, either, as I had about 900 machine cycles to use handling each incoming byte. 9600 bps was as fast as the ACIA could go on that machine. The 6800 was a pretty easy microprocessor to program, too. ###### From: J. Chris Hausler Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: Sun, 31 Oct 99 21:24:31 -0500 Organization: Delphi (info@delphi.com email, 800-695-4005 voice) Lines: 34 Message-ID: References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T125 <3819CBBF.6D97C5F@thinkage.on.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: 199.93.4.2 X-To: "Alan T. Bowler" Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!isdnet!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!carrier1.net!cambridge1-snf1.gtei.net!news.gtei.net!news.delphi.com!news "Alan T. Bowler" writes: >> Well, every acoustic coupler I ever used was 300 baud, and no one >> wanted to use one of those if they could avoid it. I would often >> drive 30 minutes (each way) to run a job on a locally attached >> (high speed) terminal, just so I didn't have to fustrate myself with >> a 300 baud connection. > >For a while there where two 1200 protocols. (Bell 212?) and one >from Anderson-Jacobsen/Racal-Vadic (3400?) there were acoustic >couplers for the Vadic protocol. A problem with acoustic couplers is that the microphone in telephone handsets of the time was prone to 2nd harmonic distortion. IIRC the answer frequency for both Bell 103A and 212 was more or less in the range of the 2nd harmonic of the originate frequency. Thus with full duplex communications your outgoing modulation which is at a rather high level trashes what the computer is sending to you. This wasn't too bad with the 103A protocol but 212 was a different story. The proprietary VADIC protocol got around this by essentially swapping the two frequencies so the originate frequency was the higher of the two. For my employer at that time I investigated and purchased a number of the vadic modems but we never did use their acoustic version as this wasn't an issue with us. At home I was using a 103A acoustic couple, probably the first one specifically marketed to the "computer hobbiest", the Novation Cat (one of my two Cats still works). Novation thought enough of this problem even at 300 baud to market a replacement microphone for the classic carbon button mic found in most phones of the time. This replacement supposedly did not exhibit this problem. I bought one but it didn't seem to make any difference that I could tell. Chris ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) From: bmarcum@iglou.com X-Everything: Net-Tamer V 1.08X NNTP-Posting-Host: lou-ts5-92.iglou.com X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: lou-ts5-92.iglou.com Message-ID: <381d3ccb@news.iglou.com> Date: 1 Nov 1999 02:10:03 -0500 X-Trace: 1 Nov 1999 02:10:03 -0500, lou-ts5-92.iglou.com Lines: 19 X-Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: news-incoming.iglou.com Organization: IgLou Internet Services, Inc. Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!news-raspail.gip.net!news.gsl.net!gip.net!grolier!uunet!ams.uu.net!ffx.uu.net!news.iglou.com!lou-ts5-92.iglou.com On 1999-10-29 enochamr@sgci.com.spamstopper(DouglasTaylor) said: >Rkazas wrote: >> Was it the one that when no one was playing every once in a while >>go " Insert Coin" ? >> I remember that no other game talked on that days, and it was >kinda scary >The only other one that comes to mind is Robotron 2084 (?), though >I'm not sure if Gorf predates it or not, nor which hardware it used >for speech synth. My son looks at me strangely when I interrupt >his N64 game playing with "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" and >"Chicken! Fight like a Robot!" I think Berzerk was the game that said those phrases. Berzerk had Evil Otto, a big bouncing smiley face that could go through walls. As I recall, Gorf said things like "Bad move, space cadet" and "Gorfians take no prisoners" (I hope not, you wouldn't want to be held prisoner by a video game). Net-Tamer V 1.08X - Test Drive ###### From: Luc Van der Veken Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Organization: . Message-ID: References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 23 Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 11:21:19 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.123.10.124 X-Complaints-To: abuse@pandora.be X-Trace: afrodite.telenet-ops.be 941451727 212.123.10.124 (Mon, 01 Nov 1999 11:22:07 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 11:22:07 MET Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!afrodite.telenet-ops.be!not-for-mail glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com posted: > Was that box based on the General Instruments chip set? That SP01 number > sounds familar. If I remember right, there was a synthesizer chip, and > another chip used as the phonem memory. If that's the one I'm thinking of, > I think I still have that chip set stashed somewhere around here > in unused condition (Too many projects, too little time.). I I think you mean the General Instrument (without S) chips. They were labeled "GI Taiwan". There was a synthesizer chip (24 pin IIRC), and a combined synthesizer with I/O ports one (40 pin - and a weird combination to put into one chip if you ask me), but I don't remember them having speech capability. In a certain period it was hard to run into a video game that didn't use them, but AFAIR all games with speech used something else for that (some just a PROM with the data lines fed straight into a DAC - and those DAC's were often just resistor ladders). SP01 has nothing to do with the GI chips though - I thought it meant "spelling uncertain" in this case (the voice chip was called Votrax IIRC). ###### Sender: eric@ruckus.brouhaha.com From: Eric Smith Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Disclaimer: Everything I write is false. Organization: Eric Conspiracy Secret Labs X-Eric-Conspiracy: There is no conspiracy. Date: 01 Nov 1999 12:40:53 -0800 Message-ID: Lines: 8 X-Newsreader: Gnus v5.5/Emacs 20.3 NNTP-Posting-Host: ruckus.brouhaha.com X-Trace: 1 Nov 1999 13:12:42 -0800, ruckus.brouhaha.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!news.datacomm.ch!newscore.gigabell.net!newsfeed.tli.de!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!enews.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!news.spies.com!ruckus.brouhaha.com Luc Van der Veken writes: > I I think you mean the General Instrument (without S) chips. > They were labeled "GI Taiwan". There was a synthesizer chip (24 > pin IIRC), and a combined synthesizer with I/O ports one (40 pin > - and a weird combination to put into one chip if you ask me), > but I don't remember them having speech capability. That's probably the SP0256 chip set. It's certainly not the Votrax SC01. ###### From: lingman@wcars05r.ca.nortel.com (Danny Lingman) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 1 Nov 1999 14:56:07 GMT Organization: Northern Telecom Lines: 22 Message-ID: <7vk9m7$fhd$1@bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com> References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> <38186c86.1188460375@192.168.2.34> <01bf2165$9a688da0$e12ac222@my0250> <1e0er4f.1psaowvo4f7pcN@ppp048.sgci.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: wcars05r.ca.nortel.com Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!news.maxwell.syr.edu!newsfeed.cwix.com!torn!news1.bellglobal.com!qcarh002.nortelnetworks.com!bcarh189.ca.nortel.com!zcarh46f.bnr.ca!bcarh8ac.ca.nortel.com!bcarh8ab.ca.nortel.com!wcars05r.ca.nortel.com!lingman In article <1e0er4f.1psaowvo4f7pcN@ppp048.sgci.com>, enochamr@sgci.com.spamstopper (Douglas Taylor) writes: |> Rkazas wrote: |> |> > Was it the one that when no one was playing every once in a while go " |> > Insert Coin" ? |> > |> > I remember that no other game talked on that days, and it was kinda scary |> |> The only other one that comes to mind is Robotron 2084 (?), though I'm |> not sure if Gorf predates it or not, nor which hardware it used for |> speech synth. My son looks at me strangely when I interrupt his N64 |> game playing with "Intruder Alert! Intruder Alert!" and "Chicken! |> Fight like a Robot!" |> Actually, that was Berzerk. Great game. Being chased by a bouncing happy face if you took too long on a screen. Cheers. Dan. ###### From: Luc Van der Veken Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Organization: . Message-ID: <5b0dOMJ6qSVmDosHNJBWXzkii1Ly@4ax.com> References: <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <633.970T1146T12554443cgibbs@sky.bus.com> <7vc6hj$il4$1@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 9 Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 17:21:57 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.123.10.124 X-Complaints-To: abuse@pandora.be X-Trace: afrodite.telenet-ops.be 941473364 212.123.10.124 (Mon, 01 Nov 1999 17:22:44 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 01 Nov 1999 17:22:44 MET Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!nntp.primenet.com!nntp.gctr.net!newsfeed.icl.net!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!afrodite.telenet-ops.be!not-for-mail glass2@glass2.lexington.ibm.com posted: > Hmm, could an IMSAI even do 9600 baud? I remember using a 9600 baud > modem on an 4.77 MHz XT, and it would ocassionally suffer buffer > overruns and drop characters. DOS has never been known for its good serial port drivers, I think that's why... ###### From: hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu (Richard E. Hawkins) Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Date: 2 Nov 1999 16:00:38 -0600 Organization: House of Hawkins Lines: 22 Message-ID: <7vnmu6$tp7$1@hawkins.cba.uni.edu> References: <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: hawkins.cba.uni.edu Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!news-ge.switch.ch!enews.sgi.com!newsfeed.berkeley.edu!logbridge.uoregon.edu!news.physics.uiowa.edu!news.uni.edu!not-for-mail In article , Eric Smith wrote: >That's probably the SP0256 chip set. It's certainly not the Votrax SC01. It's been a while since I've seen or heard a reference to Votrax. I *really* wanted one of those. I recall a unit, connected to a centronics port, i think, at the Second West Coast Computer Faire. It sat there in it's nearly monotone repeating, "My name is Votrax. I can say enn-y-thing", where stange things happened with the speed during "anything." rick, who probably wouldn't remember if it had pronounced "anything" correctly -- Prof. Richard E. Hawkins, Esq. hawk@hawkins.cba.uni.edu (319) 266-7114 http://eyry.econ.iastate.edu/hawk These opinions will not be those of UNI until it pays my retainer. ###### From: Luc Van der Veken Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) Organization: . Message-ID: References: <19991024230937.25603.00001243@ng-cg1.aol.com> <38147DE8.635725E9@trailing-edge.com> <7v32er$hpk@simba> <3815A00E.2684A921@trailing-edge.com> <38244d7d.130145287@news.nashville.com> <38173911.68B2F23B@egg.chips.and.spam.com> <7v9k2t$j8c$2@ausnews.austin.ibm.com> X-Newsreader: Forte Agent 1.6/32.525 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Lines: 18 Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:44:18 +0100 NNTP-Posting-Host: 212.123.10.132 X-Complaints-To: abuse@pandora.be X-Trace: afrodite.telenet-ops.be 941568309 212.123.10.132 (Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:45:09 MET) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 19:45:09 MET Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!skynet.be!newsfeeds.belnet.be!news.belnet.be!afrodite.telenet-ops.be!not-for-mail Eric Smith posted: > That's probably the SP0256 chip set. It's certainly not the Votrax SC01. So they *did* make speech chips. The ones I was referring to were just synthesizers - IIRC numbered AY-3-8910 and 8912. Another one that was sometimes used for sound in those days was the SN76496 (TI). In later models, the YM-2151 and a few other Yamahas were also used (ISTR one of those could get *really* hot when it was defective, but I don't remember which one ;-) Strange how one remembers such old chip numbers, and forgets important stuff (like getting his car checked up - I'm 3 weeks overdue). ###### Newsgroups: alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: Movie Computers (was: Celebrity Salespeople.) From: enochamr@sgci.com.spamstopper (Douglas Taylor) Message-ID: <1e0p6fy.1f0o33w10gqqr0N@ppp083.sgci.com> References: <381d3ccb@news.iglou.com> Organization: Department of Redundancy Department X-Face: &Yq:48^un2BRIr~6<_:iXVI\cqLY"Klhd072%PfzXP#y~t:JUM"\+CEq;0+\v |o$2\[bew94bLZk(+'x{e31}frl?=pJ5nSy8[2Sua)PWGATvi86ggu:psyu+20TZv9Ic @.uJnmp>0l-p9AWElB=yz)g#lPPP)O;)(''#1!hNy3iCis!=%zHFT1iy X-Newsreader: MacSOUP 2.3.3 Lines: 12 Date: Wed, 3 Nov 1999 16:40:17 -0400 NNTP-Posting-Host: 209.167.75.116 X-Trace: nnrp1.uunet.ca 941578771 209.167.75.116 (Tue, 02 Nov 1999 16:39:31 EST) NNTP-Posting-Date: Tue, 02 Nov 1999 16:39:31 EST Path: chonsp.franklin.ch!pfaff.ethz.ch!news-zh.switch.ch!newsfeed-zh.ip-plus.net!news.ip-plus.net!News.Amsterdam.UnisourceCS!newspeer.te.net!news.indigo.ie!news-out.cwix.com!newsfeed.cwix.com!newsfeed.direct.ca!cyclone.bc.net!news.uunet.ca!nnrp1.uunet.ca.POSTED!enochamr I stand corrected! I wonder if Evil Otto was inspired by the Rover(s?) in The Prisoner... wrote: > I think Berzerk was the game that said those phrases. Berzerk had Evil Otto, > a big bouncing smiley face that could go through walls. As I recall, Gorf > said things like "Bad move, space cadet" and "Gorfians take no prisoners" > (I hope not, you wouldn't want to be held prisoner by a video game).