LGR Oddware - Digispeech Plus Parallel Port Sound Blaster

https://www.dropbox.com/s/sj60ylqmpt1neze/04%20-%20In-Game%20%233.mp3?dl=0 Your version is better sounding, for certain, but this one appears to be longer. It's a small thing, I've just been trying to track down what these things are called since I first played the game many many years ago and hearing your demo music repeatedly through the episode made me happy. Having a filename helps too! Although the driver disks you posted to archive.org appear to have been taken down...

Mr Frozen Pancake

Thanks!

Windows user

Ahh nice memories indeed. I've got a hand-soldered parallel DAC myself that I used to play tracker tunes with before I got a real Covox speech thing. It's awesome hearing it do its thing.

LGR

It's Adlib based so not amazing, but it's presumably originally a stock piece of music and trying to find it is infuriating! I'll see if I can find it later and post it

Mr Frozen Pancake

I've done a few tour videos before! Here's the main game room as of a few years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R2TjTgG3LaA And here's more storage stuff: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y29silThj1M

LGR

Oh neat, I'm curious how that sounds. Must see if I can track down that version!

LGR

Can you do a tour of your place where you film your videos?

Windows user

The test sample I've heard in much more elongated version in a 1993 shareware artificial life simulator called Evolve! Lite by Funtek (or Evolite as it's found online). I'm slowly trying to find out the name of all the tunes in it and I wish I knew what this one was...! Nice to get it in a format that isn't adlib though I suppose...!

Mr Frozen Pancake

Ah, an Oddware episode, love it! Although it's obviously not at all the same thing, this one brought back vivid memories of using MODPLAY to play .MOD tracker files over a self-soldered parallel port DAC (the pride!)

Rutger van Bergen

Haha, entirely accurate. Now I want Android table hold music.

LGR

Thanks! It's always a happy accident that results when using that PC :)

LGR

Ahh that would've been a great addition

LGR

Indeed, it'd be quite the useful thing in a pinch!

LGR

Heh, same. There's something about the humble printer port being used for things like sound and video that will always give me a good chuckle when using it.

LGR

That'd make sense seeing as Digispeech was all over the educational software market!

LGR

Epic Pinball sounds like you're listening to it through a phone line.

Alyxx the Rat

Thank you!

LGR

"Once mankind live just like the Animals. Then something happened to unleash the power of our imaginations. We learned to talk."

Justin Urhead

Looks like a really interesting device, despite the caveats. Always been interested by devices like the Covox Speech Thing - seemed so weird to want to hook up a sound card over parallel, but I guess it's not really much different to all the modern USB cards floating about...

James Cheese

the intro! the transitions! in the last year the production value has gone through the roof. not even mentioning the lighting. You still have a passion for the tech and the videos and it doesn't go unnoticed

Hey, I recognize that voice! "This is the pitch and speed of Simon's voice", among other things. I'm most familiar with it due to its use in Kid Works 2 by Davidson & Associates.

Headset Guy

The Persario 425! How appropriate :-) Cool device though, I had never even heard of it. It works amazingly well all things considered.

Adrian's Digital Basement

Wow they didn't even have the DigiSpeech read out the categories or answers in Jeopardy? Was that not the most obvious oversight they could think of? I guess it's faithful to the Genesis version at least?????????? Yes I know it wouldn't have sounded like Alex either but still

Pietro Gagliardi

I feel it's a bad omen when a company abbreviates its name and adds "Solutions". That's a company that's lost its sense of direction.

Steve Lovelace

Looks like that DSP Solutions address now comes back to some company named... “Google”? Never heard of em.

TroyTakesPhotos

Dunno if you plan to do it more, especially since I know it'd be very dependent on what's being used at the time and where, but I did rather enjoy the whole monitor reflection setup going on in this.

Valora Inverse

Probably won't play Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, but if it did, that would be cool!

Joe Arax

Well you've got my attention there. A new PCMCIA SB recreation would be a dream come true!

LGR

Haha, yeah that's an accurate description. Once you pop t̷̢͈̠̆ḥ̸̂ë̴̳̯̦́̔͝ ̴͍͉͂̉͝f̶̛̱̼͆̿u̶͔͒͐̾n̶̳̻͂̓͑ͅ ̵̙̽̓d̶̻͇̲͗͘͝ơ̸̰̾͒ͅn̸̪͓̭̂̕'̸͈̹͆̀t̶̼͍̼́̽̊ ̷̙̀s̵̮̐̾̓ͅṭ̸̯̾̉ő̴̜͚͓̚p̶̭̒͐̿

LGR

Hope you enjoy sir!

LGR

I went a little deeper into JAWS in this video, might be worth a watch 👍 https://youtu.be/bPW2S4fZMJY

LGR

That speech synth took me back to being a kid and going to the state school for the blind's summer camp and hearing JAWS for DOS for the first time. Sounded eerily similar, maybe the same tech. I don't remember what hardware they used sadly.

Jason Wellband

Quite cool. I have been working on recreating a PCMCIA soundblaster so always interesting to see these sound related things and how the serial/printer port were pushed to the limits.... did not know there had been plans for a Creative Labs "Port Blaster" or the PCMCIA product from DSP!

yyzkevin

This digispeech plus just jumps between an admirable ad lib attempt and sounding like a can of pringles with wires, I love it!

gitshiver

This post really “speaks” to me. Can’t wait to watch!

Perifractic's Retro Recipes

Oooh. Do you have one, Jim? I certainly don't know how it's doing what it does but the limitations seem like they may be a little revealing.

LGR

Cool, another video I don't have to make! I know how these things are programmed, so looking forward to LGR noodlings.

Jim Leonard

Woo, here's to being unexpected 👍

LGR

Unexpected video in viewing area. Great!

Graham O'Mara