Re: Echo+ card

[spec@vax2.concordia.ca (Mitchell Spector)]

In article "William Girnius" <thedm@sunflower.com> writes...

>Picked up one of these for almost nothing, I know it's a sound card, but is
>it for the ][ series, or the //GS or both? Will games see it as a compatable
>sound card?

    It is mainly intended to be used with 8-bit Apple II's (there is
also an external serial version for the slotless Apple IIc) but will
work in an Apple IIgs as well. Although the IIgs with its built-in
Ensoniq sound chip was far more advanced than what the Echo Plus was
capable of, many educators used them as GS-specific software that
supported synthesized speech wasn't that widely available.

    What the Echo Plus offers is a pair of AY-8913 chips (6 voices
and 2 white noise generators in total) which can be used to play
simple music, tones and sound effects; as well as a speech chip.
In the latter case you can have it speak an unlimited vocabulary
in a robotic sounding voice, or, speak in a *very* realistic human
female voice, but with a limited 700+ word vocabulary.

>Will games see it as a compatable sound card?

    You can fool a few games into thinking it's a Mockingboard
or Phasor sound card, as it does use the same sound chipset.
Unfortunately many seem to look for a specific ID byte or kind
of address to detect one of those cards, so I found it often
won't work unless specifically supported. Most of the programs
that support the Echo Plus are educational software which allow
the computer to speak. I believe it had also been quite popular
to those who are visually impaired; in fact my own Echo Plus
card came out of an Apple IIe I bought from a family who had
been using the computer for their blind son.

Mitchell Spector
spec@vax2.concordia.ca