As Garth mentioned, there's no reason to give any thought to copper weight on PCBs. You're just not going to be dealing with much current. Traces can also be very narrow. The signal traces on my POC unit are 0.006 inches wide.

Unless you are planning to etch your own board you are better off with a double-sided PCB. It'll be less complicated to lay out.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Thanks a billion, again guys. We can let this string topic die and/or go into senescence, as I have most of what I needed. I am afraid that I got what I wanted/needed from this website, in terms of knowledge and skills--and above all, advice and links--and I wouldn't want to clog up the chat with a lot of my blather. (have you heard the rumor? We biologists are not "real" scientists!).

I am afraid that I am probably "all talk and no solder", but I will find a reason to go back and take all your advice and check all the links and resources you suggested. I appreciate the time you took to reply, and you needn't reply to this post unless you feel you absolutely must "direct the noob" to greener pastures.

I suppose I am a bit of a "ringer". Not quite a "noob". Yes, much memory is what I want. Yes fast circuits are what I want. But I am a "crawl before I walk" kind of guy. I have done a bit of PCB layout, I soldered a robot hand (muscle wires/Nitinol/Dynalloy Inc.; cheesy paper hand, though; with more muscles, i.e. force, I might try some carbon fiber tube fingers with teflon joints and nitinol "tendons") w/ controller, I occasionally play with a BASIC stamp microcontroller (radio shack bought, w/ PC attachment and handbook), and I purchased some old CMOS image sensors from a company that sold its product line to somewhere else. The image sensors need fast clocks, and, I assume, much memory. Any sort of video processing probably needs the same, and I am guessing the 65816 isn't up to the task of even running the one sensor, much less the several "focal plane array" I had originally envisioned. In over my head? YES! Maybe ... maybe not?

Good answer on the antennas (antennae? insects? Of course! Biologist!) and magnets. I worried, but now, don't. However, I am much more worried I might have handled my image sensors roughly once or twice; Let's hope I didn't fry the buggers! It only takes one moment of inattention or one lapse in our eternal vigilance.

So, my original question is still there, and a one or two sentence answer would be great (my admonitions and warnings--about my long windedness and lack of action--above, notwithstanding!). I don't mind a "commercial endorsement" so long as it is (1) cheap, (2) reliable, and (3) easy to work with. Maybe speed and max capacity is important, later, but for now, can anybody just point an idiot (original Ancient Greek meaning of "idiot" was "layman", so the self deprecating humor is only mild, here) to a RAM chip? (P.S. with all this "flash memory" stuff, there must be a revolution in the 6502 world? A RAM that doesn't erase when the power shuts off???!!! A dream come true for you 80's dinosaurs! (uggghh , me too, but I was too young in the 80's to enjoy coding the commodore 64! I just played the video games and word processed when school made me do it.).)

I guess I should "hit the books". Nothing says "expertise" like ... ummm ... well, ... expertise! Thanks again; I must go shop for RAM, talking chips, and then study the link you sent. (Bass ackwards, I know, but with chips in hand I am more likely to build something, even if I break it the first time around! Second time's a charm.).

P.S. I'll post links to 6502/talking chip projects below this post. Qbert anyone? He spoke alien through a phoneme generator! SC-01, I think?

P.P.S. Not insane or delusional; just inaccurate and imprecise. The 5400 series--not 5500--is "mil specs" ICs, for low temperature environments. But you knew that too! Thanks for the primer on 7400 series different types; Wikipedia has a good page on it, I have a few books that cover it, and someday I might commit some to memory.

Grant Searle uses a 62256 sram. You probably want a through-hole part which operates at 5V, although it depends on the rest of your system. (It's possible these days to build a system running at 3.3V, and it's possible to work with surface mount devices, although they are more difficult. Indeed, you should probably use through hole parts and sockets for each one, for your first designs.)

A 62256 is a 32k x 8bit RAM, aka a 256kbit RAM. To find one, choose your supplier and fill in a suitable search then refine it. I might use digikey, farnell, mouser [bet there's another I've forgotten]. In the case of mouser, I end up with this page.
which contains these parts:
£2.57 CY62256NLL-70PXC
£1.34 CY7C199CN-15PXC
£2.54 71256SA25TPG
£1.40 AS6C62256A-70PCN
and so on. You'd pick one, check the datasheet, and buy two or three. (You might break one, and postage will cost as much as the parts, so you might as well get a spare.)

When I graduated from college in 2002, I kicked around a bit, looking for work, but eventually threw in the towel and started a corporation in 2004. I thought I was so clever calling it "Sams Antics Inc." but apparently, everybody else doing this kind of work have used up all the good puns! Both Apple and Microsoft had some kind of speech generator named or abbreviated "SAM"! Mine is still better; get it? "sam-antics"; "semantics"! Well, there was Symantec, which probably gave me the idea (who knows, for sure?), but they make different stuff (considering the fact that I , as I have previously admitted, make nothing) and their name is "pun-ny" for very different reasons.

Well here are a few links (but not the ones I found the other night? curious? I think I have saved these other links, somewhere in the brains of this huge microsoftian beast?).

(I should check your site/forums first, and wikipedia second!)

viewtopic.php?t=1954

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft ... ech_voices

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Software_Automatic_Mouth

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/POKEY

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ANTIC

(damn! I thought my name was SOOOOO original!)

Macintalk https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlainTalk ... _MacInTalk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siri#Voice_actors ("samantha"; again with the SAM names!)

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/8618 ... uggestions

And, finally, a UK masterpiece of coding! (was there a speech chip in here? I must research more!).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t8wyUsaDAyI

The Beeb did have an option for a TI speech chip, which worked very nicely, but the Speech! program just used the 3-channel+noise standard sound chip. I think the SID in the C64 can be (ab)used similarly - this is how SAM works on that machine. The trick, I think, is to modulate the volume very rapidly, in such a way as to approximate the desired spectrum.

thanks BigEd. I see yours is the comment on the old string too! 2008!

Neat to see the speech in action; on Youtube. Also, I found a fella (online) who depotted the votrax and reverse engineered the SC-01; he got the machine to stop censoring the sh--- into sugar, and the fu---- into fudge. Funny that they could even figure that aspect into the design!

just search "depotted votrax" and you should find it. He makes it do Carlin's famous "7 words you can't say on TV". My puerile mind needs a break from code and hardware and such.

still haven't studied books/links/pdfs, or found cheap RAM. Am looking right now on digikey. I wonder.... Siri, of Apple fame, is done with a voice actor, and thus, has many word library (intonation too?)... how much RAM memory does this require? What sort of processor? Quite a marvel of engineering, I'd say...to sound so smooth?

I'll have to be satisfied with "robotic voice". Or....

I haven't looked, but there are probably "stand alone" speech synthesizer models that are modern-engineered, just waiting for me to hook my "computer" (i.e. 6502 monstrosity) up to it to make it talk as smooth as Siri?

Siri might be done with a phoneme library - the Beeb's speech used Kenneth Kendall's voice (he was a newsreader) and it was pretty authentic. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_goT9PPpn7I)

Thanks for the direction to Kevin Horton's work on reverse engineering the Votrax units!
http://www.kevtris.org/Projects/votraxml1/index.html
http://www.kevtris.org/Projects/votraxtnt/index.html

I think I'll go digikey; RAM chips (some extras) in pocket for 12 bucks-ish! (or less). Cypress chips seemed good.

I suppose Garth's primer should be read? Perhaps I'll follow his schematic? (I skimmed the diagram and dl-ed it). An EEPROM purchase will follow; and a VIA from WDC, I think. Meanwhile, speech chips seem neat-o!

(P.S. Big-ed I got your subtle point there---subtle because I was skimming not reading. Some Beebs had the voice chip, and some faked it; I think that's what you said? I will read again more closely. Beebs had a 6502, too? I think I read that. I must go hunt for food now. There is a box of macaroni and cheese I have been tracking through the forest; twelve gauge macaroni!. Or, on second thought, maybe just microwave it.)

What a curious notion. Having the computer swear at the human seems rather a case of the shoe being on the other foot!

_________________
In 1988 my 65C02 got six new registers and 44 new full-speed instructions!
https://laughtonelectronics.com/Arcana/ ... mmary.html

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http://WilsonMinesCo.com/ lots of 6502 resources
The "second front page" is http://wilsonminesco.com/links.html .
What's an additional VIA among friends, anyhow?

FRAM is probably handy, but it looks like surface mount only, and about £12 each.
Cypress Semiconductor
FM28V020-SG
FM1808B-SG

Also, there's Mouser, in case Digi-Key doesn't have stock on what you need.


You can get WDC parts from Mouser.

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x86?  We ain't got no x86.  We don't NEED no stinking x86!

Indeed, it's nonvolatile, and just as quick to read and write but it turns out it's ferroelectric not ferromagnetic: atoms in cages have two stable locations and are shifted between them.


See the F-RAM tab on this page.

(Also interesting, like the core memories they remind us of, reading is destructive, so they have to do a writeback after each read. Arguably DRAMs do the same.)

Garth; about 1/3rd through your primer. Thanks for info; especially on 74HC vs. 74LS and 74others. I almost went for the 74LS139/8, but caught the error last minute. Also, NMI and IRQs are interesting to me; I should check out the I2C as I have some other chips that use that kind of bus/transmission/method/specification. Also, UARTs.... people mention them alot; I have some catching up to do. And wire wrap? I am not sure I will take that advice, though it is probably good advice. I don't have the tools, but I have some of the tools for PCBs and some familiarity there already. Thanks again; I will keep an open mind and take the good advice given (still not sure if I want VIAs or PIAs? I must read more.).

I forgot; I have some fiber optic (plastic, i think?) transmitter/receivers (UV I think? Or IR?). maybe some "peripherals speed"--for remote, approx. 3 to 6 feet, I/O units--could be gained in that fashion? Maybe I will bust those out and start wiring them together and testing them? Cheers!