Rick Melick's Commodore VIC-20 Tribute Page
A trusted online reference since 1996.
I've got some supplemental materials over on my blog as well: https://rick-melick.blogspot.com/.
I've got some supplemental materials over on my blog as well: https://rick-melick.blogspot.com/.
From the late 1970s and throughout the 1980s, Commodore Business Machines sold well over 30 million units... the computers mentioned on this site! Since then I have been fortunate to have tracked down and/or contributed a number of interesting artifacts of that era. Hopefully they will make your research efforts a little easier. My goal is to get any original content up on the Internet Archive as well. Please accept my apologies in advance if I did not give you attribution. Just email me: rmelick650 at gmail dot com, and I will correct it. Hopefully these items are obscure and scarce enough that you won't mind them listed here as well. It is a compliment, really! :-)
The VIC-20 introduced millions of people to the fascinating world of personal computing. It holds this high honor primarily because it was the first color computer to break the $300 (U.S. Dollars) price barrier. As the VW Beetle was the people's car, the Commodore VIC-20 was a computer for the people. Indeed, it was, "The Friendly Computer."
Filled with first-hand accounts of ambition, greed, and inspired engineering, this history of the personal computer revolution takes readers inside the cutthroat world of Commodore. Before Apple, IBM, or Dell, Commodore was the first computer manufacturer to market its machines to the public, selling an estimated 22 million Commodore 64s. Those halcyon days were tumultuous, however, owing to the expectations and unsparing tactics of founder Jack Tramiel. Engineers and managers with the company between 1976 and 1994 share their memories of the groundbreaking moments, soaring business highs, and stunning employee turnover that came with being on top in the early days of the microcomputer industry. This updated second edition includes additional interviews and first-hand material from major Commodore figures like marketing guru Kit Spencer, chip designer Bill Mensch, and Commodore co-founder Manfred Kapp. Priced new from $9.89 (Kindle Edition).
(Disk image.) - I wrote this game back in 1983. I would have been about 15 years old, so pardon my juvenile humor with the phonetic spelling of asteroid. My high school buddy, Patrick, did the graphics. It is kind of a miracle I still have the code. It spent about 14 years on an old cassette tape in the closet. (long since lost) It then spent another 12 years in PC-VIC's 'PCV' format. I've since resurrected it in D64 format for use on VICE or a real VIC-20. It is an Arcade/Avoid genre game in the style of a downhill skier or cavern runner. Use your joystick to fly through an asteroid field at warp speed. The longer you stay alive the higher your score. Arcade fun for the whole family! In 2010, I re-wrote a minimal version to optimize for speed and memory.
(PRG File.) - Can you make your 1530/C2N Datasette play audio cassettes through your TV speakers? Why, yes you can! Written by D. Rother, Tape Ton is a little 1K program to listen to music cassettes. Written in ML for unexpanded VIC. Just LOAD and RUN it. Type SYS7424 to activate it. It adds a new keyword to BASIC called "TAPE". Place a music cassette into your datasette, type TAPE, press PLAY and listen to the audio cassette on your monitor's speakers through the VIC-20. Press F7 to quit.
Cardco Cardkey Numeric Keypad (Disk image.) - Drivers for the CK/1 keypad for C64 and VIC. Documentation Here. Bits restored by Fredric Blåholtz and myself in 2011. Totally not needed if you also have the extremely rare CK/A board as shown to the right. If you have the Atari CX85 numeric keypad, the Cardco driver will work for it, too. Just try this example keymap configuration file. (Sequential file.) Notes on the CX85 version: NO=*, DELETE=/, YES=RETURN.
To get this working I bought a "new" CK/1 from an old Commodore dealer (not cheap). Even though the cassette had never been used, bit-rot had set in. Nothing would load without a load error. I eventually had to bring the program into my PC as a WAV file from cassette, double the volume, play it back to my VIC-20 through a Cassadapt interface and have the potentiometer set exactly right to trigger whatever signal was too weak on the original cassette. Took me all night of tinkering and about 40 tries. The good people at Cardco only recorded it once on the cassette. (Two copies front and back might have been a nice gesture.) I didn't think it was recoverable. As far as I know it is not available anywhere else online today.
If you are using MLX and the driver isn't working, change the following line in MLX from:About:
101 POKE788,52:REM DISABLE RUN/STOPto:101 SYS(the number you found in K Basic): REM ENABLE CK/1To redefine one of the keys as a comma, list Lines 7010 to 7050 of the K Basic program and change the desired key to a comma.
A light pen is a pen-shaped input device which connects to a compatible computer (such as the VIC-20). The device contains a light sensor which, when pointed at a cathode ray tube screen, generates a signal each time the electron beam raster passes by the spot the pen is pointing at. The VIC chip accepts this signal, generates the X and Y coordinates in a pair of registers, and, if desired, causes an interrupt to the CPU every time new coordinates are reported. It is difficult to find a light pen that still works today. Plus, you need an old TV with a picture tube (not an LCD). The first light pen was called a "light gun" and in 1952 it was part of the Whirlwind Project at MIT. Subsequent devices were used to hone in on suspicious blips on the CRT in the U.S. air defense system (research the Whirlwind and SAGE systems). The light pen became moderately popular during the early 1980s. Since the current version of the game show Jeopardy! began in 1984, contestants have used a light pen to write down their wagers and responses for the Final Jeopardy! round.Despite the ease and availability of this technology, it was rarely used, owing mainly to lack of precision. First of all, the X coordinate is "rounded off" to even pixels (or more precisely; the reported X coordinate is an integer representing half of the actual horizontal position). Second, problems with noise, non-ohmic properties of the involved cables etc. causes a lot of "jitter" (several pixels) on the reported X coordinate, even if the pen is held completely still over a specific point on the screen. The light pen also requires the entire screen image to be quite bright, to ensure a significant "spike" in the amount of light received as the beam passes by the pen's tip. Any dark graphics causes the aiming point to "slip off" the dark areas, catching a nearby brighter spot on the screen instead. These limitation make the light pen system unsuitable for "precision work", such as drawing things or pointing to menus on the screen, leaving only "non-precision" shooting games as a target application for this technology.
The long ribbon cable that connects this adapter to your computer is liable to pick up electrical interference that prevents some cartridges (including Quick Brown Fox) from working reliably. Products from Precision Technology are also suspect. The only way to fix Cardco's 6-Slot Adapter is to wrap the ribbon cable in aluminum foil to screen out the interference. Be sure that the aluminum foil doesn't contact any other metal surface, such as the edge connector or the circuit board. This may expose you to a shock hazard and damage your equipment.
Cardco Cardboard/3s - The most valuable feature of the Cardboard/3s is its ability to switch select memory address lines on a per slot basis. DIP-switch settings:
Dip 1: Slot 1, block 5 Dip 2: Slot 1, block 3 Dip 3: Slot 2, block 5 Dip 4: Slot 2, block 3 Dip 5: Slot 3, block 5 Dip 6: Slot 3, block 3 Dip 7: Blocks 1 & 2 for all 3 slots
Cardco Cardette 1 - No documentation, but still worth a mention. Absolutely the best way to transfer TAP files converted to WAV using your Mac/PC sound card and a program like Audacity. I use TAPWAV v2.5 to handle the conversion from TAP to WAV. I set my computer's volume to about 75-80% in Audacity, but your experience may differ. I've owned many various C2N/1530 substitutes, including DC2N, but I must admit that I'm most impressed with this old classic. Pick it up on eBay the next time you see one! I also recommend grounding the cassette switch pin (F-6), so VIC doesn't keep asking you to press buttons on the datasette unit. Pin A-1 is ground on the cassette port. I don't recall any VIC-20 games that required the cassette switches to be off to RUN, but there may have been some C64 ones. Correct me if I'm wrong.
About:
The Jason-Ranheim Company (San Jose / Auburn) was a company which made specialized boards for the Commodore and advertised in all the Commodore magazines of the 1980's and 1990's. JR sold a variety of eprom related products for the VIC-20 circa 1983, and produced the Promenade C1 EPROM programmer. The Promenade C1 has been cloned by several people and is seen by many as the eprommer standard in the USA.
In September, 2011, Judy Ranheim, widow of John Ranheim of the Jason Ranheim Company, contacted Robert Bernardo's user group. Judy wanted to give the remainders of the company to the user group, and Robert visited her house and packed his car with loads of goods from her. The FCUG members were be able to pick out what they wanted at the following users group meeting.
Some comments on VIC Tongues: Sending random phonemes to the Votrax can give VIC his own language. You can listen for hidden messages amongst his endless babble. Is it inspired? If you are lonely he can be that loyal companion who never shuts up!Code:220 PRINT"{CLR}{RVS ON}VIC TONGUES" 230 A%=RND(1)*63 250 POKE38912,A% 260 IFPEEK(38912)<128THEN260 270 GOTO230
The Protecto Enterprizes VIC-20 Voice Synthesizer is actually a 1983 Personal Peripheral Products (PPP) Speakeasy. As far as I can tell this information is not available anywhere else online today. Speakeasy is a voice synthesizer designed to allow voice to be added to adventure and cartridge games on the VIC-20. It comes in a cartridge that plugs into the VIC's expansion port. These models are self-amplified, requiring only an external speaker be connected to the RCA phono jack in the rear. The synthesizer can be programmed from BASIC or machine language by POKE-ing to only one address. The package includes an editor that allows the user to append, insert, and delete phonemes in strings to create phrases and sentences. The 256 phoneme buffer can be stored on tape or disk. The Speakeasy cartridge, including the editor tape, originally sold for $79. An optional Speaker Box and C64 Adapter were also available. There are two existing programs online that work with this unit:About:1. Phoneme Editor.t.prg
2. Phoneme Speak.t.prg-- There is some missing software out there for BLK5 = $A000-$BFFF that adds command(s) to BASIC: Smoothtalker. Also missing are Gametalker and Terminaltalker. If you have one or more of these programs then please contact me at "rmelick650 at google dot com" so I can host them here for everyone to enjoy.
These manuals were added 3/6/2011. Thank you Paul D. for the find! I've scanned and uploaded to DLH's Commodore Archive.
1. Speakeasy Installation and Operations Manual v1.2.
2. Speakeasy Phoneme Editor Operating Instructions v1.
All the Votrax speech synthesizers owe their existence to the discrete speech synthesizer design created in 1970 by Richard T. Gagnon. In 1980, Votrax designed and manufactured an integrated circuit speech synthesizer called the SC-01/SC-01-A. This IC proved very popular in the third party market and was produced until at least 1984. Several ICs populate the SPEAKEASY-C board:
Votrax sc-O1-a p8143 5107c Speech Synthesizer (US Patent 4,433,210)
NSC 130c lm 386n-1 Low Voltage Audio Power Amplifier
NSC p227 dm7406n Hex Inverting Buffers with High Voltage Open-Collector Outputs
Mitsubishi m74ls75p811900 4-BIT D LATCH (temporary storage)
Mitsubishi m74ls27p812200 TRIPLE 3-INPUT NOR GATEBYTE magazine published an article (Features, Feb. 1981, page 164) about the SC-01 by two Votrax Employees, and here is its phonetic speech dictionary.
The Protecto / Speakeasy expects decimal values (0 to 63) for the phonemes to be poked into 38912 ($9800). So, you need to update the Table 1 in the dictionary and number each line in decimal from 0 to 63. It is already in order. Just start at the first line "00 EH3 59 jacket" and number from each line from 0 to 63. The table continues on to the following page. You will use the decimal number to POKE instead of the hex number printed in the left column as the, "Phoneme Code." You can then say any word from pages 5-22 in the back of that dictionary by making the hex-to-decimal substitution for the phoneme codes shown in Table 1. For example:
"Shut your face."Example phoneme programming sequence:
3E, 11, 32, 31, 2A, 3E, 29, 34, 34, 2B, 3E, 1D, 06, 21, 29, 1F, 3EProtecto / Speakeasy ("POKE 38912") Sequence:
62, 17, 50, 49, 42, 62, 41, 52, 52, 43, 62, 29, 06, 33, 41, 31, 62
Code:LOAD address $1001 220 PRINT"{DOWN}{RVSON}SPEAKING" 230 FORJ=1TO17:READA 250 POKE38912,A 260 IFPEEK(38912)<128THEN260 270 NEXTJ 280 POKE38912,63 300 DATA62,17,50,49,42,62,41,52,52,43,62,29,6,33,41,31,62
Data 20 16K "Video Pak" w/ Power Supply (1982) seems to be a first generation of the 40/80 column card products. It used a Synertek 6545 video controller. Power supply was 9V AC output (same as VIC), so a two prong VIC-20 power supply could be adapted by connecting leads to the bottom side of pins 1 and 3. A number of people have reported owning 64k Video Paks, so they were definitely not vaporware. Notes on the Word Manager software: vwp and vwp+ are basically the same, but vwp+ requires slightly more memory. There is also some mail merge software. I know I found them somewhere else from Brent Santin, but the documentation was a lot harder (had to locate a 16K Video Pak and scan them myself).
Data20 Programs (Disk image) - A disk image of Data20 programs for VIC and C64, including the hard to find, "Plan Manager," (called CALC) a spreadsheet program.Plan Manager Instruction Manual - in the process of being uploaded to DLH's Commodore Archive. - DONE!
Word Manager Instruction Manual from bytemaniacos.com. Uploaded to DLH's Commodore Archive. (An older 1982 version has been obtained and is here now!)
Word Manager Feature Key Definitions:Data 20 Video Pak Instruction Manual. Scanned and uploaded to DLH's Commodore Archive.F1 SELEXT FUNCTION KEY SHIFT / NON-SHIFT --- ----------------- 1 SAVE / LOAD 2 CENTER / PRINT 3 CHANGE PRINTER / CHANGE STORAGE 4 BLOCK MOVE / BLOCK COPY 5 REPLACE / SEARCH 6 REPEAT OFF / REPEAT ON 7 UNDERLINE OFF / UNDERLINE ON 8 MERGE FILE NAME / SET MERGE 9 REMOVE DOCUMENT / CLEAR DOCUMENT 0 SET FORMAT + LEFT JUSTIFY / GOTO NEXT PAGE - READ DIRECTORY / GOTO PREVIOUS PAGE LBS FORMAT DISK / EXIT TO BASIC CLRHOME DELETE LINE / TOP OF PAGE INSTDEL INSERT TEXT / DELETE CHARACTER CRSR UP/DN MOVE TO START OF DOCUMENT / MOVE TO END OF DOCUMENT
Video Pak Function Key Definitions:F1 = UPPER CASE F2 = LOWER CASE F3 = ERASE TO END OF LINE F4 = ERASE TO END OF SCREEN F6 = PRINT SCREEN [must OPEN127,4 first], or OPEN127,4:PRINT#127,CHR$(139):CLOSE127 F8 = TERMINAL ON|OFF [must open127,2,2,CHR$(8) first]Video Pak firmware resides in BLK 5, however adding another 3K + 8K in BLK 3 can give you max 31K bytes free for Basic!! How?
Unplugging the Video Pak power adapter also disables the 16K expander, so you can leave it in and still use your Mega-Cart or other similar products. The Video Pak is also compatible with the Speakeasy Voice Synthesizer; Cardco CK/1 Numeric Keypad and JiffyDOS (function keys do not work, and disk directories must be loaded & listed). Software research is still ongoing, but here is an example of how to use the Programmer's Aid cartridge (function keys do work):SYS 45059 : POKE 642,4 : SYS 58232
SYS 28681 : SYS 45059 : NEW
Display Manager (a.k.a., Protecto 40/80) seems to be the second version of the Data 20 video hardware. It is a smaller board, more refined and requires no external power supply. It optionally shipped with 8K RAM which could be configured in BLK1 or BLK3. The manual mentions the firmware ROM at $A000. As far as I can tell it functions exactly the same was as the ROM in the earlier Video Pak adapter card from 1982. I found it easier to pop that ROM out so it doesn't conflict with my RAM pack also in BLK5, and just use the auto-start cartridge image whenever I want to use 40 or 80-columns. This configuration also allows me to use the RAM starting at $B000, though I'm still testing what benefits this could provide me. They put some screen RAM there! :-(
About:
Data 20 Corporation was incorporated in California on May 26, 1982. The company was located south of Long Beach in Laguna Hills. Data 20 employed approximately twelve people. The company was founded by husband and wife team Edward and Jan Sempliner along with William J. Schlanger. The Sempliners contributed $30,000 as the initial capital of Data 20. Mr. Sempliner was a director, president, and a thirty percent owner of Data 20. In October, 1983, Sempliner had a nervous breakdown and resigned from Data 20.
Mr. Schlanger was 22 years old at the time and named director and vice-president of engineering. As vice-president of engineering of Data 20, Mr. Schlanger handled all of the engineering design and development for Data 20, and all of the production purchasing for Data 20. He hired and supervised the five engineers and technicians working for Data 20. He also hired his brother, Steven.
Steven Schlanger was hired as a salesman by his brother. In October, 1983, when Sempliner resigned, Steven was named a director and vice-president of sales and marketing of Data 20. As vice-president of marketing for Data 20, he was responsible for selling the products of Data 20. He handled customer relationships. He supervised two employees who fielded phone calls from Data 20′s customers. He controlled the prices Data 20 charged its customers.
In January, 1984, William Schlanger hired William White to be president of Data 20. Under White's leadership, Data 20 failed to fully pay its payroll taxes from the last quarter of 1983, all four quarters of 1984, and the first half of 1985. The company also failed to secure meaningful venture capital during this time.
In May, 1985, William Schlanger resigned from Data 20 when the company filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. On October 12, 1989, the United States of America recovered $70k from William White in a lawsuit over the whole payroll tax issue. The Schlanger brothers went on to patent an uninterrupted power supply system for Unison Technologies in October, 1988.
- 5 slot combination rotary and rocker switch selectable expansion board conveniently covers all switching needs.
- Combination switches allow total control between computer cartridges and game cartridges.
- Dataspan-50 allows stacking of memory cartridges up to 29K in BASIC and 40K in machine language.
- Fully buffered by five hi-tech, low power, integrated circuits that help prevent erratic operation and loss of data common in typical un-buffered expansion boards and isolates the VIC's microprocessor from accidental damage.
- Highest quality circuit board with gold contacts throughout.
- Fused to protect the VIC-20's power supply.
- Master reset button eliminates turning computer off and on.
- Independent write-protection on two slots.
- Aluminum side rails.
- If you accidentally have the polarity reversed the VIC won't start. Just power down and reverse the polarity.
- Rotor 0, all DIP switches OFF = unexpanded VIC
- Rotor 0, DIP #1 ON = VIC + 3K RAM visible to BASIC (6655 bytes free)
- Rotor 1, DIP #1 & #2 ON = VIC + 8K to BASIC (11775 bytes free, or more) + 3K for ML
MSD Model VIE VIC20-IEEE - Micro-Systems Development, Inc. manufactured an interface cartridge which converts the cartridge port to the IEEE protocol and allows direct access to IEEE devices of all kinds.Inside were four chips and a female edge connector, mounted on a good quality, solder-dipped printed circuit board with two male edge connectors. The large edge connector plugs into the VIC cartridge port. The female connector mounted on the PC board is a straight through extension of the cartridge port lines. This means that use of the VIE cartridge does not restrict one from later expansion. The smaller male edge connector is the IEEE port designed to mate with Commodore's P/I cable, or Jim Brain's handy IEEE Cable Adapter over on RETRO Innovations.
Once installed, the interface can be enabled via SYS40000. This actuates the approximately 1K EPROM onboard software. Once enabled, the interface can be disabled by any one of the following:
In dual-drive systems, such as the CBM 8050, the way to specify one drive over another in BASIC v2 is:
SAVE "D[0|1]:TESTPROG", 8
More Information:
The IEEE-488 Bus is also known as the HP-IB (Hewlett-Packard Interface Bus), and is commonly called GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus).
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VC-20 Type-Ins from Tokra! |
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Compute! Magazine |
Compute!'s GAZETTE |
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128SpeedScript 128, Oct 87.
SpeedScript 128 Date and Time Stamper, Nov 87.
SpeedScript Justified, Jan 88.
Turbo SpeedScript, Feb 88.
SpeedCheck 128, Sept 88.
SpeedScript 128 Plus, Sept 89.
SpeedScript Easy Cursor, Nov 89.
You can simulate a CMD hard drive using a µIEC or sd2iec card drive using fakehd.bin. It contains just the minimum amount of data to be accepted as a CMD HD by the Wheels 128 drive autodetection code. Many thanks to Ingo Korb and the sd2iec developers. Assuming you are using JiffyDOS and you have placed fakehd.bin in your root directory:
@XR:FAKEHD.BIN @XWYou now need a bootable DNP hard drive image. (DNP images are CMD hard disk drive images that can be mounted on an SD card using µIEC and fakehd.bin ROM.) One has been created for you. Many thanks to RBM for making it and sharing! The following binaries are all included on the hard disk image:
@CD:WHEELS128.DNP BOOT
P/MBringing up CP/M on a C128: The C128 basically started with the Z80 as the active CPU. The computer would check to see if there was a CP/M boot disk in the drive. If not, the Z80 would be disabled and 8502 took over.
SP0RT.COM allows you to send Commodore-style DOS commands to anyUsing CBM-Command, I put the cmd_cpm_utils.d64 disk image on a real floppy. I then booted CP/M as usual from a disk image in µIEC. Once booted, I changed to drives B> in my case - where my SPORT.COM utility was located on floppy disk. The real point here is to get off your boot disk image in drive A> while we're sending commands to the µIEC hardware.
serial port device. SPORT is issued as a command with up to three
command parameters. These parameters are assigned values for the device
number, secondary address and command. If issued without any parameters,
SPORT will present a help screen. Here is the syntax:
SPORT [/Ddv] [/Ssa] [/C'command'] where: dv = the device number, in hex, of the target drive (8 = 8) sa = the secondary address, in hex, of the command channel (15 = f) command = the command string (be sure to enclose the string within 'single quotes')SPORT works in a manner similar to most DOS wedges.
To move out of the CP/M boot disk image in drive A>:
Note: _ is created using the "back arrow key" [<-] on the C128 keyboard (upper left-hand side).sport /d8 /sf /c'cd_'
Note: My CP/M boot disk image file name starts with cpm* in the root directory of my SD card.sport /d8 /sf /c'cd:cpm*'
What does all this mean, you ask? It means that if one were organized and had various CP/M disks in the root directory of their SD card they could move in and out of those disk images using SPORT.COM from within CP/M. This is about the same behavior as if one were using a real CMD HDD from within CP/M, and the reason CMD released the SPORT.COM utility along with the hard disk drives.
64The Commodore 64 was an 8-bit home computer released by Commodore International in August, 1982, and during it's lifetime (between 1982 and 1994), sales totaled close to 17 million units, making it the best-selling single personal computer model of all time. Approximately 10,000 commercial software titles were developed for the Commodore 64 including development tools, office applications, and games. The C64 made an impressive debut at the 1982 Winter Consumer Electronics Show, as recalled by Production Engineer David A. Ziembicki: All we saw at our booth were Atari people with their mouths dropping open, saying, 'How can you do that for $595?'.
Getting to C64 mode on a C128: If the C= key was being held down on boot or the user typed, "GO64," the C128 would shift to C64 mode. With few exceptions it was 100% compatible. Compatibility was a difficult lesson that Commodore learned from the PET-VIC-C64-TED days, but finally got it right in the end with the C128.
Plan Manager Instruction Manual - in the process of being uploaded to DLH's Commodore Archive. - DONE!
Word Manager Instruction Manual from bytemaniacos.com. Uploaded to DLH's Commodore Archive. (An older 1982 version has been obtained and is here now!)
Computer Place Numeric Keypad (Document) - Instruction sheet and box cover for the hard-wired numeric keypad from Computer Place.
I didn't have a C64 at the time I was working on restoring the VIC-20 version, so I figured maybe the best thing I could do for my C64 friends is to post a WAV file of the C64 side of the tape (no modifications) and let the experts hack away at it. This was Side One (the VIC stuff was on Side Two). Sound Recorder was set to record at PCM 44.100 kHz, 16 Bit, Stereo, and I was using a first-generation C2N for the playback to Windows. This is the same configuration I used to eventually get kbasic-vic.prg posted online earlier. Tape length was roughly two minutes. e5frog (Fredric Blåholtz) picked it up from Lemon64, and worked all night on the repair. He got it! He found it looks pretty much like the VIC-20 version. "The first row of DATA is the same and then it starts to differ on some bytes," he said.
Smoothtalker 64 for PPP Speakeasy-C (Document) - See the disk image below for a copy of the Smoothtalker 64 program...
 | PPP Speakeasy-C Software:1. Talking Print 64 for Speakeasy 2. Smoothtalker 64 3. Phoneme Editor/T, Phoneme Speak/T, Phoneme Editor/D, Phoneme Speak/D Extended Vocal Chord for Speakeasy 4. A rumored game (a space shooter) from Aztec Software Ltd that used the Speakeasy for speech and some sound effects.(Is this list complete?) |
Stefan Uhlmann contacted me on May 15, 2013 to report that he had #1, #2 and #3 of the software programs mentioned above and would begin working on restoring them from tape. On May 20, 2013 the conversion was completed and these programs are now available as a disk image. Many thanks to Stefan for restoring these untra rare programs!!
About: PERSONAL PERIPHERAL PRODUCTS, INC. was formed on April 14, 1983 in Illinois by RONALD J TAYLOR. RICHARD SCHWARZBACH was the president of the company. The PPP Speakeasy-C was also sold through Protecto Enterprizes as a Voice Synthesizer under their brand name.Hi Rick, attached the disk image with the files from the tapes: 1. Talking Print 64 for Speakeasy SIDE A - TALKING PRINT 64 - WORDS (this is a dictionary that could be read and rewritten with the above program) SIDE B same as A (I loaded it, but a binary compare with the PC didn’t find any differences) 2. Smoothtalker 64 for Speakeasy SIDE A - SMOOTHTALKER 64 - WORDS (I was not able to load it, but I guess it’s the same as above) SIDE B empty 3. Phoneme Editor/T, Phoneme Speak/T, Phoneme Editor/D, Phoneme Speak/D, Extended Vocal Chord for Speakeasy SIDE A - PHONEME EDIT/T64 - PHONEME SPK/T64 SIDE B - PHONEME EDIT/D64 - PHONEME SPK/D64 Have fun, Stefan
"...He destroyed me. ...He destroyed my family. ...He did all kinds of terrible things, but he gave me a chance to do something that nobody else would. ...I can remember that and thank him for it." -- Chuck Peddle on Commodore founder Jack Tramiel in, "On the Edge: The Spectacular Rise and Fall of Commodore."
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There are six main sites online that together make up a complete reference library of vintage material for all Commodore computers:
- DLH's Commodore Archive
- Internet Archive > Ebook and Texts Archive > The Computer Magazine Archives
- The Classic Computer Magazine Archive
- atariarchives.org (Books, information, and software for Atari and other classic computers.)
- commodore.ca (Products, History, Galleries, Manuals, Links, Forums and more.)
- replacementdocs.com (mostly game manuals - various systems)
ommodore Deathbed Vigil (video)