78 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
78 lines
3.9 KiB
Plaintext
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PHUK MAGAZINE - Phile 7 of 10
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NO GIFT FROM HALLMARK - DrKaos
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After the 2600 article by FyberLyte ("The Magical Tone Box", 2600 Vol
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10, No.4), I hunted in vain through my local Rat Shack for an
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ISD1000A but without any joy. Of course I did not plan to do Red
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Boxing, as it doesn't work in the UK, but I did think that the chip
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had applications that could stretch as far as a whole number
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including CF, KP & ST ....
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When the buzz started about the Hallmark cards that could record
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speech & tones began, I looked all over for a UK source of the
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Hallmark cards, even going as far to phone their UK HQ, only to learn
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that they were not imported into the UK. I did however find a UK
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supplier, DISET UK, and phoned them with the express idea of
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engineering some "samples" out of them on the grounds that I wanted
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to buy several hundred or so of these cards (yeah right!). As this
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approach seemed to fail I took the backup approach of ordering two
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cards by mail order for about 12 quid. The cards arrived, and then
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some MORE cards arrived, and then still MORE cards arrived .... until
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I had 6 in all...:)
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I dismantled my card and removed the microphone and crappy little
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speaker and then put the whole mess into a DAT tape box along with a
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record/playback switch, an actuation press switch and a phono jack
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for the imput (throwing away the mike in the process). I won't bore
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you with the details of the actual construction because that was
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covered in 2600 Vol 11, No 1 ("A Gift from Hallmark" by Bernie S).
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Suffice it to say that anyone with half a brain and a soldering iron
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can figure out how it works and box it adding switches etc themselves.
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In testing my box I found that I had plenty of space for a good long
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sequence: Break, Clear Forward, KP2, <num>, ST .... but never managed
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to succesfully seize a trunk with it (although the break seemed
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fine). About this time my tone generating machine (an Amiga) broke,
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and I also learned that the timings were suspect in the box proggie I
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was using, so I just put it down to the program, threw the box in the
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drawer and forgot about it.
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In the meantime I had given out cards to several people, so that they
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could experiment with them also. One of these nefarious individuals
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was at that time boxing with a Walkman and was suffering tape
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stretch, and thought that the Diset Box would be cool.
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I forgot all about the Diset Box for a while, being occupied with
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other things, but at a 2600 meeting a while ago the subject of the
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Diset cards came up and I asked the individual concerned whether he
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had ever constructed the box. Yes, he had, he replied, but it didn't
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work!! Apparently, using the same tones and trunks that he could
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succesfully box over with his Walkman, he had loaded up the box and
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set off only to find that what did work with his Walkman, did not
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work with the box :( Shame!
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Now I thought about this recently, and it seems that there could be
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several reasons for the failure: (i) volume not loud enough, (ii)
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distortion or clipping of frequencies caused by the algorithm used in
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the digitisation process, or (iii) distortion caused by using the
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crappy little speaker that came with the card. Unfortunately my Amiga
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is still broken, and until I buy a soundblaster card I cannot
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generate tones, and that has to wait until I get gainful employment!
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Still, if anyone has succesfully overcome the problems with the Diset
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box by improving amplification or speaker quality PHUK magazine would
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like to hear about it. In the meantime here is the address of Diset
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UK should anyone want to play with a Diset Box themselves.
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Diset UK, Portica House, Addison Road, Chilton Industrial Estate,
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Sudbury, Suffolk, CO10 6YJ. Phone: 0787-310775
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- DrKaos
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+++
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EOF |