Making 80s Computers Talk | 1980s Commodore Speech Synthesizer

Windows 3.1 had a speech synthesizer with Soundblaster. My brother and I had endless laughs making it say all sorts of rude things to eachother.

I like to support British content creators. Especially, those who are too young to have been in the golden era of microcomputing. Learning and understanding the humble origins of the bedroom coder scene, who ended up establishing some of the big developers of the modern times. Like people say, she's straight to the point, no waffle or fillers and she keeps her audience engaged. Well done Kari, keep up the great work.

I remember when my parents bought a Soundblaster for our 386. The "therapy" program it shipped with was called Dr.Sbaitso, and would fully speak to you like a psychiatrist. You could also tell the software to speak what you typed, which led to all sorts of mischief!

SAM is a great software speech synth for the C64. There are lots of things to adjust.

That's awesome a new generation playing with machines I grew up on ...... I loved my TI/99 4A growing up .... The voice synthesizer was so awesome Alpiner was a favorite for the "Uh oh nooooooo" sound when you fell lol

I didn't have any of these, but back in the 80s, I had a copy of SAM, the Software Automatic Mouth, an entirely software base speech synthesizer for the C64. Once it was loaded, you could use a command (I think it was SAY) to make it speak anything you wanted. You could use other commands to change the pitch and speed, and you could use phonetic spelling to improve the pronunciation. You could use the commands in BASIC programs as well. Back then I would sometimes type in programs from magazines, and often, they would have large sections of data, which would be prone to typing errors. At first, the magazines didn't have any kind of proofreading program, so I made my own for the data parts. When run it would ask for a starting address, and would then use SAM to read the number at that address and speak it as a three digit number, such as "1-4-9" or "2-0-5". I made it joystick controlled so that I could step through memory addresses, repeat the current address, or go back one address. Combined with a joystick extension cable, I could lie on my bed with the magazine and use the joystick to have SAM read out the numbers as I followed along in the listing.

Mark my words, this channel is going to grow fast! these voices remind me of Sinistar! "I am Sinistar" "beware I live" along with the rest of its menacing phrases are some of the most terrifying moments in my gaming career.

As a kid I used to love playing with text to speech on my Amiga. Used to do entire stories full of swearing lol

The War Games reference at the end made me laugh out loud! Awesome stuff!

I remember impossible mission game voice, "Stay awhiie, STAY FOREVER ha ha ha" same as gorf sound. Was mind blowing in early 80s when my neighbour had one.

I spent many hours playing with Superior Software "Speech!" on the BBC Master Compact. I distinctly remember going to the store and asking if there was any software that could make the computer talk. I was not disappointed.

I'm impressed, anything 80s 💖

I remember getting a Currah 64 for my Commodore 64 for Christmas in the 80s when I was about 12, I absolutely loved it. Really happy to see a new generation discovering and enjoying the C64.

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My mate brought around his synthesiser and plugged it into my ZX Spectrum in the late 80's. I thought the future had arrived! 😅 I'd love to see that again. 🥰

The native speech on the Amiga 500 was very good

Kari, you would like the Odyssey 2 and the voice module. Sold as the Philips Videopac G7000 in Europe. Also I think you would enjoy SAM (Software Automatic Mouth) for the Commodore 64. You're on such an exciting journey, and you're gonna love every minute of it!

"Greeings, Professor Falken. A strange game... The only winning move is not to play."

🤘🤘

I'll never forget the first time I saw a Gorf arcade machine. It was the first time I'd ever heard synthesized speech. Walked into a Dairy Queen and heard "Spah-eees cah-det". Absolutely floored me.