Amstrad SSA-1 Speech Synthesizer

Amstrad SSA1 box cover

The bundle

A Speech Synthesizer from Amstrad based on the SPO256-AL2 Speech Synthesizer

Software

|SAY,@<string> - Converts a string af ASCII text to speech
|ECHO,<mode> - Activates text to speech conversion on text printed to the screen.
|APHONE,<allophone>[,<allophone>] - Send allophones directly to the interrupt driven allophone buffer.
|ROOM,@<value> - Find out how many free locations in the allophones buffer.
|QUIET - Clears the allophone buffer.
|SPON - Activates the speech interrrupt event.
|SPOFF - To prevent output of data from the allophone buffer.
|SPSTATUS,@<value> - Read the status of the speech processor.
|SPOUT,<allophone>[,<allophone>] - Sends allophones directly to the soundprocessor.

Technical Specs.

The clock frequency (passed to the speech chip) is fixed, the exact frequency is unknown (?)

Uses I/O port: #FBEE, of which (according to the manual) only A10,A4,A0 are decoded.

Port FBEEh READ:

 bit7   Status 1 (0=Speech Busy, 1=Ready/Halted)   (SBY Pin, Speech Busy)
 bit6   Status 2 (0=Ready to Receive Data, 1=Busy) (/LRQ Pin, Load Request)
 bit5-0 Not used (garbage, probably usually highz)

Port FBEEh WRITE:

 bit7-6 Reserved (must be zero)
 bit5-0 Allophone number               ;data can be send when Status.Bit6=0

Supported Games

3D Boxing
3D Stunt Rider
Alex Higgin's World Snooker / World Pool
Darkwurlde
Glen Hoddle Soccer
Roland In Space
Tubaruba

Caution - Some webpages do (incorrectly) list further games: Gremlins (spanish version), Seablood and Robin of Sherwood (these contain code for using Port FBEC & FBEF for some kind of data transfer - not for speech). Also, Dragon Gold is listed as speech game (not sure why, it doesn't seem to use any special I/O ports; unless different versions of that game exist?)