Software Automatic Mouth, or S.A.M. (sometimes abbreviated as SAM), is a

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

program developed by Mark Barton and sold by Don't Ask Software. The program was released for the

Atari 8-bit family The Atari 8-bit family is a series of 8-bit home computers introduced by Atari, Inc. in 1979 as the Atari 400 and Atari 800. The series was successively upgraded to Atari 1200XL , Atari 600XL, Atari 800XL, Atari 65XE, Atari 130XE, Atari 800XE, ...

Apple II The Apple II (stylized as ) is an 8-bit home computer and one of the world's first highly successful mass-produced microcomputer products. It was designed primarily by Steve Wozniak; Jerry Manock developed the design of Apple II's foam-m ...

, and

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

. Released in 1982, it was one of the first commercial all-software voice-synthesis programs. Don't Ask Software also sold ''PokerSAM'', a poker game with speech, and also licensed out the S.A.M. engine for use with other games, such as ''Tales of the Arabian Nights'' for the

Technology

The Apple version uses an included expansion card which contains an 8-bit DAC, although pirates created a modified version of S.A.M. which can instead use the computer's one-bit audio output (with the addition of much distortion) if the card is not present. The Atari version makes use of the embedded

POKEY POKEY, an acronym for Pot Keyboard Integrated Circuit, is a digital I/O chip designed by Doug Neubauer at Atari, Inc. for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers. It was first released with the Atari 400 and Atari 800 in 1979 and is included i ...

audio chip. Speech playback on the Atari normally disables interrupt requests and shuts down the

ANTIC Alphanumeric Television Interface Controller (ANTIC) is an LSI ASIC dedicated to generating 2D computer graphics to be shown on a television screen or computer display. Under the direction of Jay Miner, the chip was designed in 1977-1978 by ...

chip during vocal output. The audible output is extremely distorted speech when graphic and text display is turned on. The Commodore 64 makes use of the 64's embedded SID audio chip's 4-bit volume DAC, reducing its quality significantly vs the Apple and Atari versions.

Legacy

S.A.M. was used as the basis for the original

MacInTalk PlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis (MacinTalk) and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc. In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many researchers in th ...

speech synthesis software. The technology was recreated for the voice of the character of "SAM" in the software

Chipspeech Chipspeech is a vocal synthesizer software which was created by Plogue with the goal of recreating 1980s synthesizers. About The software is used for creating vocals for use within music. Chipspeech is designed to produce vintage-style vocal ...

. S.A.M. was used to create the voices of characters in the 2017 game '' Faith: The Unholy Trinity''.

References

External links

Speech Synthesizers for Atari and Apple
magazine review

an

Atari BASIC Atari BASIC is an interpreter (computing), interpreter for the BASIC programming language that shipped with the Atari 8-bit family of MOS Technology 6502, 6502-based home computers. Unlike most American BASICs of the home computer era, Atari BAS ...

spelling program
SAM manual
reproduction of the Atari version manual
Analysis of SAM
translated version to C and executable for Windows
Run SAM in the Browser
translated version to native

JavaScript JavaScript (), often abbreviated as JS, is a programming language that is one of the core technologies of the World Wide Web, alongside HTML and CSS. As of 2022, 98% of Website, websites use JavaScript on the Client (computing), client side ...

SAM as JAVA class file for the JVM
2020 Interview with Mark Barton about S.A.M.
{{Speech synthesis 1982 software Apple II software Atari 8-bit family software Commodore 64 software Speech synthesis software