Category: Garage Sale
Hi,
I'm looking for an Apple II E computer. It came with a little voice box that sounded like a robot.. I think they called the echo box or something.
Does anyone know where I can find one of these, or does anyone have one? I'd be willing to pay good money for it.
It's probably long since been put on the trash heap, but I'll ask if my old one's still in my parents' attic. Even if so, it may not run after 15 years!
You may have to fight Eleni for it, though. LOL
Cool! Please let me know if you find it. Like I said, I'll pay you for it.
Eleni here. I have both an Apple IIC and an Apple IIGS, alot of software and a printer. But it's all up in the attic and inaccessible at the moment. The IIGS I won't sell but I can sell the IIC. The "box" is actually the speaker to the Echo synthesizer, from Street Electronics, which hooks into a card in the machine if I'm correct. I haven't set it up in awhile. But there's another model that's all in one (the Echo LT I believe) and I've got that one too. I also have another very rare synth from the 70's for it that I haven't used yet. I know of a place that sells all sorts of Apple II stuff but have to remember the site. You could probably get an II there or on ebay, maybe even an IIE, which is the one I don't have. lol But I'd suggest the IIGS, since it's the top of the line. You'd also need Texttalker in order to make it speak if you don't already have that.
Ah yes, the Apple 2E. Many of my fondest childhood memories come from playing those games with that robotic synthesizer that always sounded as though its mouth was full of mashed potatoes. Granted the Typing Game used to scare the hell out of me when I was younger. That's the one, for those who don't remember, where letters fell down the screen and you had a gun to fight them off with. You had to type each letter individually to shoot it. As the letter got closer to the bottom of the screen the voice's pitch would get higher and higher and that's what used to scare me.
Haha! I remember the Apple computers. I had one when I was in high school! Those games used to amuse me and my friends for hours, mainly "The Great Escape."
Yikes. I keep hearing about The Great Escape. Now I've gotta find it. I've got a box of blank 5.25 inch disks somewhere. I wonder if they can be format with my IIGS so that I can download the game to them with my XP machine or if I'd need to set up Pro Term and do it that way? Anyway, I have two copies of Dr. Pete's Talking Writer, the disk with the Typing Game. One is the exact same disk I used in elementary school, and even though it's slightly warped, it still works. The other I got later on. Does anyone know if there's a DOS version of The Great Escape and what interpretor I'd need to download for it?
The Great Escape actually came on the Echo/Cricket training disk set. I wanna say it was the flip side of disk 1. Loved that game, and especially the way the Echo said villion instead of villain.
I know! It took me a while to figure out exactly what it was trying to say when it said villain.
lol I'll have to try that on mine, though since I'm using the GP on the PC, they may have fixed it by that point. Grrr, so I guess I can't get that disk then. No fair!
No. The GP is a totally different device. Same vocal tract, but keep in mind that Textalker actually modified the vocal tract's pronunciation of certain words.
Ah, gotcha. I never got to use Texttalker. I bought it and Proterm and then put the Apples away. So I'll have to play with them for the first time once I get them out.
I grew up with it, and if I were in front of an old Apple running Textalker, could probably remember the commands in a pinch. I hope you have an Echo or Cricket that works with it, as the gP does not.
Like I said, those are some of my most favorite childhood memories. Lo-ding. Please wait ay my-nute. LOL.
Enter configuration.
Ah yes, the BEX program. I remember that one very well.
I remember it vaguely, but if I sat down in front of one now, I'd be screwed. I don't remember any of the commands.
That was basically the word processor we blindies used. I don't remember any of the commands myself, nor even whether I would be able to regain my chops if I sat down in front of it now. You know, if i had the moeny, not to mention the space to set one up I would most definitely fight tooth and nail to get my paws on one of those machines. The speach quality was crap but it was still the first thing a lot of us were exposed to and, for some of us it has..well sentimental value. I remember playing that Space Invaders game...wel not for hours on end because I remember only once having access to one outside school, but certainly when there was free time in computer class that was what I was doing. "Gotcha! One gun left." The Apple 2E computer with an Echo synthesizer and the old Speach Plus calculator are two gadgets from my younger days that I'd give just about anything to get my hands on. Oh, and let's not forget the old Speak & Spell. Spelling level A. Press Go to begin. Press Enter to check your answers. LOL.
I have the Sharp Speech Plus! It still works!
Wow! Looks like my machines are hot commodities. I had no idea they were that highly sought after. I have BEX but never used it either. My Apple experience was pretty much in elementary school and then my high school gave me the IIGS when I graduated cause they were throwing them all out and knew I'd love it as a retro computing fanatic. I remember calling APH and buying Proterm and Texttalker (this was in 2002 or so) and then that was it. Then, in 2007, I got my Mac and have been having problems with it ever since.
THe cool thing was that a lot of the programs you could use on the Apple 2E would work on the GS as well. I don't know about BEX but only because I never remember using it on anything but the 2E. But I remember using quite a few of those programs on both models, the 2E and the 2GS.
Bex does work on the GS.
This is gonna be so much fun! I can't wait to get everything hooked up. I need to get a modem though, since I wanna try going online.
Wow. Getting online with an old Apple 2E or a 2GS is gonna be slow as hell.
They actually make Ethernet cards for them. Go that route, and hook up to your broadband. I'm not sure how the dial-up networking stack works on them, but I hear the Ethernet stack is good.
I can just hear the Echo synthesizer having a field day with today's modern computer terminology LOL. Damn what I wouldn't give to get my hands on one of those. But as I said I've neither the space nor the finances.
I'm suddenly curious if the Apple 2E and the Echo were what Erik Weihenmayer was referring to in his autobiography when he talked about his stay at the Carol Center for the Blind (at least I'm pretty sure that's where he was referring to). I know he played a game I remember playing once or twice during my own Apple days, the Eamonn game. But he also talks about a pornographic game one of his fellow students smuggled into the school and that they played after hours. It always made me laugh since he talked about beating the game and hearing the synthesizer read the ending text. "Oo! Ah! Oo! Ah! Oo! Oo baby! Oo baby! Ah! Game over." LOL.
Wow! It would actually be neat if somebody could write a free Echo software synth, just for nostalgic purposes.
God, I remember playing with one of those. I'd love to play those games for memory's sake. One of my former vision teachers who passed away due to complications from diabetes, taught me how to type on one of those, and I used many of those games to improve my typing skills. I wonder how I'd do on that one game where you type in the letters before they hit the ground ... lol
That's the one I was talking about earlier, the one that always used to scare the hell out of me because of how the voice used to get higher and higher. I actually got to the point where I was scared of the synthesizer in general for a while. It took some time every Friday playing with a program and just making it say whatever I wanted, usually just everyday sort of stuff like people's names and things, for me to calm down. I remember it would actually play Yesterday by The Beatles, though obviously these being the Apple 2E days it just beeped it LOL. But I seem to recall this was the same program, maybe it was Texttalker but I can't remember, where you could get it to say anything just by typing it. I had a lot of fun with that after the summer of my Eighth grade year, which is the only other of the two times I ever had access to a 2E outside of school. The first time was when I was living briefly in Wisconsin before I moved to San Clemente, California, and my former vision teacher (who I subsequently found out passed away from cancer a few years later), had one of her own and we played with it with some of the programs I used to love when I was younger. Then when I was fourteen my vision teacher at the time wanted me to take the 2E we were using home and work on getting more proficient at BEX. No idea why he did this since the very next summer he got me started using JAWS for DOS and the Apple 2 and all its programs pretty much fell by the wayside. But I do agree. It'd be cool if someone could write a free software version of the Echo complete with its characteristic sound for nostalgic purposes. It'd be funny to use an Echo with Window-Eyes LOL. Especially since I don't believe the Echo PC synthesizer, which if I'm not mistaken, is the modern version of that old thing, sounds anything like it. Speaking of I wonder if there are sound clips of the Echo anywhere? I used to have some but the site I found them on is gone.
Okay, a bit of fun. *smile*
http://www.cs.indiana.edu/rhythmsp/ASA/AUfiles/29.AU
I didn't know that you could go on the net with an Apple using an ethernet connection. Even as someone who used it a bit in my childhood, I can't understand the love of the Echo. It's such a bad synth, even by older standards. Still, if I don't get myself a nice external, it's what I'll be forced to use on my laptop... so I'm still glad I have one.
Nobody's arguing the Echo was a bad synthe but it doesn't stop it from having a certain nostalgic value for some of us.
Actually, for its day, it was a very good synth, given its price point, and high level of programability. The Echo IIB cost $150 when it came out. You couldn't buy half a hardware synth today for that low price! I had an Echo 2B, as well as an Echo Plus, which was the one that had stereo sound, and a 4-voice midi synthesizer built in. I also had a Cricket, which was later renamed Echo 2C, which was the external box that worked with the Apple 2C, and Laser 128. All these synthesizers were available for less than $250, and as I said, you couldn't get a synth today for that. Even then, the DecTalk cost $1,095, and wasn't near as programable on the Apple as those Echos running Textalker. For a text-based screen reader, Textalker was extremely easy to use, and had a very powerful screen review feature. Again, you can't compare it with today's tech, but for that time, the Echo family was where it was!
I've never heard of the echo plus. Four voices? Now I wanna find one. Will it work on IBM-compatible pcs?
I'm not sure but I think the Echo only ran on the Apple computers. I remember that while I was living in California my vision teacher had an Apple 2E computer with a version of the Echo that had multiple frequency settings. By turning one of the two knobs on the speaker box you could make it sound like a chipmunk or a giant depending on which way you turned the knob. Me, I tended to rpefer the normal setting.
That was an Echo Clone, called the Echo Commander, made by APH. It had the Street Electronics chip, but also had a speaker like the Echo 2B, which was wedge-shaped, but had that extra rate/pitch control. The pitch would go up as the rate went faster.
The Echo Plus will not work on a PC. It was made for the Apple sockets, which had totally different pin-outs than the PC, and it didn't have four speech voices. It had four midi voices for music playing.
Here you go guys. *smile*
ECHO II Speech Synthesizer Sound Card
http://cgi.ebay.com/ECHO-II-Speech-Synthesizer-Sound-Card-Apple-IIe-IIGS_W0QQitemZ150400515497QQcmdZViewItemQQptZLH_DefaultDomain_0?hash=item230491bda9
Taken from the discription at the above link.
"This is a genuine Street Electronics ECHO II sound card & speech synthesizer. This card is dated 1992 and is in sterling condition. The system comes complete with Echo II Utilities, Echo II Utilities for the Apple IIe, Text Talker for DOS, Text Talker for ProDOS, Word Editor, and the Manual on disk.
The card connects to the motherboard with the included internal cable. There is also an RCA type speaker jack on the card itself for connecting an external speaker or headphones.
Included in this auction are:
Echo II Sound Card (SN: BT033)
Internal Cable
Software Disks:
Echo II Utilities
Echo II Utilities for the IIe
Text Talker for DOS 3.3
Text Talker for ProDOS
Word Editor
Manual"
I'm sure that you can also find an Apple IIE on ebay as well. Good luck and happy bidding!
Well the speaker box my vision teacher had wasn't the usual wedge shaped one I'm most familiar with. This was just a square speaker box with the knobs on the top front edge. And the pitch didn't actually increase when you turned the knob. It just sounded...well smaller for lack of a better word. Or if you turned the knob the other way it got bigger LOL.
I'm still thinking it's the same box, possibly before the wedge speaker came out. There was also one that was kinda like an in-line volume control/Equalizer, but it didn't last long. Could've been that one, too.
I just remember it being extremely funny to play, say, the Typing Game or work with Bex while using an Echo that sounded like it was on helium. I also remember another model with the speaker box that was just a plain square speaker with what felt like a round cloth grill and no external controls. And thinking back I suddenly remember the 2E my vision teacher in Wisconsin had actually had a name. She called it Cordy and told me that the Echo was "his voice box." I remember it could also serve as a regular speaker for sound effects in some computer games that didn't necessarily have the capability to support speech. I remember a game in elementary shool called Odelle Lake (although the spelling could be off there), where you played the role of a fish and your goal was to survive until old age by reacting to a series of encounters with other lake dwellers. THere were some little sound effects and I remember that if the computer happened to have an Echo hooked up to it it could serve as the speaker for the sound effects even when it wasn't talking.
Yes, the programs on the Dr. Pete's Talking Writer do that too. Oddly enough, they sound different on my Apple IIC, which has a built-in speaker than they do on machines which use the echo speaker.
Maybe it's because it was the first exposure I ever had to a talking computer but yes, the Echo does have a fairly high level of nostalgic value for me. I know there's a computer program written by a guy named Steven Klower (SP?), called Steve's Talking Clock, which offered a bunch of different speech schemes, one of which happened to be an Echo scheme. What I want to know is how they created the sound files for the varrious words and things. "Hello, I am here to tell you that the time is 12:00 PM. Thank you and goodbye." LOL. There was also a valley girl scheme but that was kinda weird.
Perhaps, he just recorded it from an actual Echo synthesizer. That would make the most sense.
Probably using a really good digital recorder or somehow connected the thing to another computer to send the files there. Either way the quality was excellent. Like I said I think it'd be cool if someone could write a software version for Windows. Be funny to use it in Window-Eyes.
I tried my Echo GP in WindowEyes. It couldn't keep up with the pace of the internet etc. Actually, I don't see why someone couldn't create the voice with ESpeak. It might be a bit different but it could work. They could probably do it by plugging a patch cord into the headphone jack of the synth attached to their Apple or PC and plug the other end into the machine used for doing the recording.