1980s Echo text-to-speech synthesizer on the IMSAI 8080

video upload by df9999999999

"I recently was given a 1980s-era Echo PC voice synthesizer box with serial port interface. You simply send text to the both over the serial port and it speaks it. It uses the same chip as the old 1970s Texas Instruments speak and spell.

I figured out how to access TTY2 on the back of my newly completed IMSAI 8080 kit. Using XYBASIC, I wrote a program to speak various well known phrases from misbehaving computers featured in several scifi movies, including War Games, of course.

Accessing the TTY2 serial port on the back of the replica must be done by outputting a byte at a time to port 34. The default TTY2 baud rate was already 9600, matching that of the Echo PC. There is no handshaking. All must be coded manually. The Echo box has a very small character buffer and sends an XOFF command when the buffer fills and a XON when it clears. I check for those conditions in the BASIC program with some simple loops. Hardware handshaking on port 35 could be done, but the flag bit definitions are not well documented.

I set the cadence, pitch and inflection lower than default with a flat inflection that enhances understandability.

I also read the front panel switches to trigger the various phrases."

"Do you want to play a game?"

via Wikipedia
"The IMSAI 8080 was an early microcomputer released in late 1975, based on the Intel 8080 and later 8085 and S-100 bus.[1] It was a clone of its main competitor, the earlier MITS Altair 8800. The IMSAI is largely regarded as the first 'clone' microcomputer. The IMSAI machine ran a highly modified version of the CP/M operating system called IMDOS. It was developed, manufactured and sold by IMS Associates, Inc. (later renamed IMSAI Manufacturing Corp). In total, between 17,000 and 20,000 units were produced from 1975 to 1978."

Vintage Buchla at University of Victoria, BC Canada

This one in via Grant


"This device, in the pics (Al from BB), cost UVic $100,000 to build or procure (not sure how it got there) but it’s in the UVic school of music control room."

Update: Grant wrote back to say the $100k was guess, and according to Rick in the comments it didn't cost that much. You do have to wonder how much this system would go for.

Update via sealion in the comments: "I borrowed this for a music be-in performance a few years ago which we did to mark the death of Bob Moog. It is one of three such units bought at Don Buchla's famous garage sale when he moved his production in San Francisco. UVIC music prof and Tibetan chanting aficionado Martin Bartlett drove down in his VW microbus and bought three units from Don, that one, one for SFU and I believe a missing third one. It is still in use today. Cost may have been about $6,000 (total guess) and I know a decade ago a standing offer of $20,000 from a dealer in LA was regularly turned down. A technician said due to age tuning was an issue for some. I bought the surplus cv/trig op-8 to dcb to a midi box setup that they used with it long ago.
At that time the department was doing a lot of Electronotes building, serge kits, biofeedback as cv and trigger experiments. Back then I attended a performance in the Department of David Rosenbloom's pathbreaking On Being Invisible performance which involved handmade circuit boards controlled by an IMSAI kit made thing called a computer, programmed using toggle switches for each line of code. It read output from body sensors that monitored his brainwaves, pulse and muscle's electrical activity. He sat Buddha yoga style and barely moved to control the performance. The last time I saw Martin before his death was at a stoplight. I looked over and saw him leaning back from his VW wheel jaw and mouth shaped to do that deep Tibetan bass note drone with overtones thing he left electronics for, at the light by Mayfair and Denny's."

Update via Rick: "i restored this system in 2010.. its fully functional now and sounds wonderful"

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