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Speak & Spell Hacking For Fun And Profit
Bowie J. Poag writes "Pete Casper has created a number of truly bizarre Speak & Spell hacks, and case mods (!) suitable for live performances. The highly modified Speak & Spell can be controlled either by the membrane keypad or using an Atari joystick of all things. Tons of photographs and MP3 samples included.. I want one. Now."
>Tons of hotographs
Now Slashdot is only linking to images captured in the infrared spectrum? Great, now I'm going to have to spend the dough to update to the PowerBook with the face-burning screen, in addition to the penis-scorching base.
Marc Siry || interactive media professional, motorcycle enthusiast ||
"Tons of hotographs." Looks like the /. editors could use a Speak & Spell. ;)
I had a Speak n' Spell when I was young. It eventually got whacked a few too many times and its database somehow scrambled:
SnS: Now spell: "Erkngwhkfzgnkil".
Me:[A] [P] [P] [L] [E] [Enter]
SnS: Incorrect. Please try again.
Me:[M] [O] [N] [K] [E] [Y] [Enter]
SnS: Incorrect. Please try again.
Me:[S] [T] [U] [P] [I] [D] [Enter]
SnS: Incorrect. The correct spelling of "Erkngwhkfzgnkil" is: S A U C E R.
It was great! Sadly, it sounds nothing like the "Random Noise" or "Glitch" mp3s. I'm disappointed.
...wow (and their was much rejoicing).
come on fhqwhgads
Tons of hotographs and MP3 samples included..
My browser doesn't seem to have hotograph viewer support. Is that one of those new 3-D hologram thingies?
Slashdot: come for the pedantry, stay for the condescension.
tcpa SUX!!!!
Can we MAME this one?
Do I need an original Speak & Spell to apply the mod patch?
Will the Speak & Spell manufacturer put a stop and desist order for mod chips?
Will we? Will we?
How long until we kill this invention?
This space for rent.
Just for those of you who are not old enough or, like me, not American enough to immediately understand what exactly is an Speak and Spell device which that guy modded, here some clarification (ripped from the first or second google hit):
Plenty of toys become hits, but only a select few make history. One of the finest examples in the historical arena is Speak & Spell. Not only did this toy educate its users, it spoke to them using brand-new computer technology. Simply put, this toy managed to pack a computer's worth of top-flight technology into a plastic shell that was small enough to conveniently fit in a backpack. As a result, it became a favorite with kids and one of the most successful educational toys of all time.
Texas Instruments, a company best known at the time for its calculators, introduced Speak & Spell in 1978. This electronic marvel was design to teach its users spelling skills with vocalized lessons. What made this toy impressive was that it pulled this off without using a tape recorder or other conventional recording device. Speak & Spell created convincing speech sounds through a method called digital speech synthesis. In other words, it used computerized circuits to create a replica of the human vocal tract that would synthetically "speak" words aloud when prompted. This was the first use of this kind of technology, making Speak & Spell a toy for the history books.
Speak & Spell offered five different spelling games to occupy the user. For the most part, these games revolved around Speak & Spell's saying a word aloud for the user to spell. This was accomplished by punching in the proper combination of letters on the toy's alphabetical keypad. As each letter was pressed, Speak & Spell would say it aloud so the l'il speller could hear his choice. Other buttons allowed the user to hear a word repeated, retype the answer before entering it, or even receive a clue.
Another nice thing about Speak & Spell was that its electronic brain could be expanded to keep up with its users as they grew older. Speak & Spell pulled this off through new learning modules--little cartridges inserted in the back of the machine that could add new words to the games to increase the level of learning up to an 8th grade level.
Speak & Spell's unique combination of technology and fun made it an instant hit with kids. Its popularity with its target audience was given a further boost when a certain adorable alien used it to help him "phone home" in E.T. The Extra Terrestrial. Both parents and educators appreciated its value as a teaching tool, and their combined seals of approval made Speak & Spell a common sight in homes and schools alike. Its popularity also led to sequel electronic games for other areas of learning like Speak & Math and Speak & Read.
Speak & Spells are not made today, but their popularity continues to live on. It has become a popular possession for Generation X adults who want to relive their youth, and musicians often sample Speak & Spell's vocal sounds to create trippy yet oddly familiar effects in their music. Having already outlived its own shelf life, there is no doubt that Speak & Spell will long occupy a place in the hearts of the grownups it once educated.
my
I played with one of these when I was a girl. Later as an adult I heard a Steven Hawking lecture and my first thought was, "Oh My God, it's my first spelling teacher."
I keep waiting for him to in the middle of some physics lecture or interview say, "spell Schwarzschild radius."
There is a Speak & Spell simulator for Windows here if any of you want to relive those great S&S memories. :-P USA and British versions are available.
Didn't E.T. already do this twenty-some-odd years ago?
Shut up, Steve Jobs.
I was thinking the other day that there weren't enough bad techno songs out there yet...
Hmm, I always though this was a hotograph.
Oops, nevermind - I thought you said hottiegraph.
Long ago, I came across Carrion Sound, which has been tweaking toys and instruments of today and yesterday into noise masterpieces. Mp3 examples are there, too. A bit more on the artistic-side, but many of his examples are quite impressive. And although many-a Speak-and-Spell were destroyed in this man's work, he destroyed many, many, many, many other things, too.
Anyone who can turn a Pikachu doll into something even more disturbing should get a medal.
-agent oranje.
i think h would come before "i will kill your family"
Common in the electronic music community - very fun stuff... Google for "circuit bending" and check out some of the sites.
IANATE (I am not a trained ear), but...
Here's my take on the tracks presented:
1. Slow Melodic - Between the deep "bong" noises (bong noises, indeed), you can hear the faint cry of an abused robotic child. They have tortured the soul of this Speak N Spell.
2. Rhythmic Loops - This is almost too short to care.
3. Loop N Pitch - This has an enjoyable mid-eighties video game flare to it. If I didn't know better, I'd think that this came from a mutilated Atari.
4. Slow Loop N Pitch - It's the same as #3.
5. Rythmic Loop 4 - Is neither. It sounds like an abused telegraph.
6. Glitch Pitch - probably the most interesting of the collection, I'd imagine that this is similar to a robotic death.
7. Rythmic Loop 1 - This track has the annoying qualities of an alarm clock coupled with the repetative nature of your boss. Not recommended for those with heart conditions.
8. Random Noise - Sounds EXACTLY like the intro to Metroid Prime. It's scary.
9. Glitch - Sucks. Nuff said.
10, Rythmic Loop 2 - is the closest thing to outputting something worthy. This has coffee edge with 9-volt-battery-on-toungue power.
11. Loop w / Randomize - I think this is the sound my bathtub makes when emptied.
12. Distortion - SATAN has possessed the Speak N Spell. It's actually pronouncing things - but in this case, at best, it sounds like a smoker that has a tube cut in their throats.
My end analysis:
WHAT DID THESE TOYS EVER DO TO YOU, MAN?!? Poor things.
Video Game News, FAQs, etc
Alien Devices
Anti-theory
Both sites are way cooler than the story's link and have sound samples and howto guides on circuit bending. Enjoy!
Wrong. The correct spelling of photograph is p-h-o-t-o-g-r-a-p-h.
Now spell...
A pizza of radius z and thickness a has a volume of pi z z a
Perhaps I am too much of a bottom-feeder to recognize the value in this, but does anyone think that those MP3s sound like complete shit? I was expecting to hear the thing rapping the Random House Children's Dictionary, and instead it sounds like a SnS having a seizure. Hell, I used to do *that* when I was a kid by hitting the damn thing really hard.
_sig_ is away
You don't think hacking a 30 year old electronic toy to make "music" is News for Nerds?
Especially funny since he actually pronounced it that way until we corrected him. Never let a child use one of these things unsupervised!
-WS
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Go to my web page. I wanked a S&S and got several minutes of that kind of trippy stuff. I recorded it to hard drive using a nice DAC. It's in my "Work" page. In my "Links" page you'll find links to a couple more web sites that do stuff like this.
When my siblings and I were young, we went through a very trying time when our Speak and Spell was posessed by the devil. We were minding our own business when the damn thing turned on by itself and started spouting random sentence fragments. As if this wasn't scary enough, the power button completely ceased to function. When we tried turning it off, the screen started scrolling unintelligible glyphs and it dropped the english language entirely and began speaking in tongues. The worst part was that those things have one of those damn impenetrable battery compartments that can only be opened with a coin or similar flat object, so while my younger sisters cried I had to run around and try to find something to kill it with. Quite traumatizing for a bunch of children under the age of 12.