[sdiy] Looking for Speech Synth Chips! Can you help me?

[Grant Richter]

> As I want to design a MIDI controlles speech synthesizer with the old Votrax
> SC-01 chip
> I need to get some of these chips for testing and building.
> 
> Does someone of you have one or more of these chips that he wants to sell?
> Preferable in Europe but also overseas offers are welcome.
> 
> Please let me knwo if you can help me.
> 
> SC-02 / SSI263 chips are also welcome...
> 

The last SC-01s I saw cost me US$100 each. Let me know if you find a cheaper
source.

There's a picture of my Votrax babble box if you scroll down this page:

http://www.musicsynthesizer.com/Modules/modules.htm

I used a CD4046 phase locked to a VCO to generate the high frequency clock
for the SC-01. And an ADC0800 to provide bits for phoneme selection under
voltage control.

BGMicro has the SPO256 allophone chip sets for around $35. You can use a
similar clock scheme with that chip. It comes with a microprocessor
programmed to do text to speech conversion. You can hang it on a printer
port or RS-232 serial port. My faithful Atari 800XL is now dedicated to
being a terminal for the SPO256.

A fun thing is to spell out drum sounds phonetically and see what the chip
does. Like "Boooom-Chick-Booom-chick-shhhhhhh". And, of course, to hear a
computer talk dirty is always hilarious.