Re: Data Sheets

From: Richard Atkinson (rga24_at_hermes.cam.ac.uk)
Date: 2000-02-08 16:38:32

On Mon, 7 Feb 2000, Nicolas Welte wrote:

> Do you have details how the 6721 is connected inside the V364 system? In
> the Magic Voice it is quite hardware intensive: A 6525 controls a gate
> array which then controls the 6721. I couldn't see anything similar in
> the V364, only the Toshiba chip. Okay, maybe one of the ROM chips is the
> gate array, but there's surely no 6525. Any ideas?

Here's a quote from Bil Herd's 8563 story:

"Back when TED (the Plus four) had been mutilated decimated and defecated
upon, management decided to kick the body one last time. "TED shall Talk"
came the decree and the best minds in the industry were sought... We
actually did have two of the most noted consumer speech people at the
time, the guys who designed the "TI Speak an Spell" worked out of the
Commodore Dallas office. They did a custom chip to interface a speech chip
set to the processor. Operating open loop, in other words without feedback
from any of the system design people (US) they defined the command
registers. There was a register that you wrote to request a transfer. To
REALLY request the transfer you wrote the same value a second time. We
referred to this as the "do it, do it now" register or the "come on pretty
please" request, or my favorite, "those #$%&@ Texans" register. ANYWAYS,
the 8563 also had a problem where the 256 'bite' transfer didn't always
take place properly, leaving a character behind.
This ended up having the effect of characters scrolling upwards randomly."

Is this the 8706R0 he's talking about, or the gate array inside the Magic
Voice? In other words, which came first - talking 264 series machines or
talking C64s?


Richard

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