{"id":76,"date":"2023-05-21T21:00:55","date_gmt":"2023-05-21T21:00:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/?p=76"},"modified":"2023-05-21T21:00:55","modified_gmt":"2023-05-21T21:00:55","slug":"pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/","title":{"rendered":"PokerSAM \u2013 The Talking Poker Opponent for the Atari 400\/800\/XL\/XE"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">PokerSAM is a one-player poker game for the 8-bit Atari.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The player competes against a single-voiced opponent, Sam, in a two-player game of five-card stud poker. The game uses the Software Automatic Mouth, or S.A.M. speech synthesis program developed by Mark Barton and sold by Don\u2019t Ask Software.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">S.A.M. was released for the Atari eight-bit family, Apple II, and Commodore 64. Released in 1982, it was one of the first commercial all-software voice-synthesis programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Speech synthesizers in the eighties were expensive and usually required expensive hardware. However, the Atari version of S.A.M. made use of the Atari\u2019s embedded POKEY audio chip. Speech playback on the Atari normally disabled interrupt requests and shut down the ANTIC chip during vocal output. While speech could be generated without blanking the screen, the resulting speech was of lower quality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-embed-handler wp-block-embed-embed-handler wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"PokerSAM - The Talking Poker Opponent for the Atari 400\/800\/XL\/XE\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/mEIFhE2jxXs?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Apple version used an included expansion card that contained an eight-bit digital to analog converter. The Commodore 64 version used the 64\u2019s embedded SID audio chip\u2019s four-bit volume digital to analog converter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">S.A.M. was later used as the basis for the original MacInTalk, as well as the Narrator device in AmigaOS on the Commodore Amiga.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">While PokerSAM may sound prehistoric when compared to today\u2019s speech synthesizer, the effect was quite impressive in the nineteen eighties. Speech synthesis has come a long way since the eighties. Believe it or not, this video\u2019s narration was generated by a speech synthesizer called Speechelo.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20230407223909\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/Oldfartplaying1\" target=\"_blank\">Follow me on Twitter<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/oldfartplayingoldgames\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Follow me on Instagram<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.twitch.tv\/oldfartplayingoldgames\" target=\"_blank\">Follow me on Twitch<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>PokerSAM is a one-player poker game for the 8-bit Atari. The player competes against a single-voiced opponent, Sam, in a two-player game of five-card stud poker. The game uses the Software Automatic Mouth, or S.A.M. speech synthesis program&#8230; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":78,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[11,20,29,37],"class_list":["post-76","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-computers","tag-apple-ii","tag-atari-8-bit","tag-commodore-64","tag-games"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.2 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>PokerSAM \u2013 The Talking Poker Opponent for the Atari 400\/800\/XL\/XE - Old Fart Playing Old Games<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PokerSAM \u2013 The Talking Poker Opponent for the Atari 400\/800\/XL\/XE - Old Fart Playing Old Games\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"PokerSAM is a one-player poker game for the 8-bit Atari. The player competes against a single-voiced opponent, Sam, in a two-player game of five-card stud poker. The game uses the Software Automatic Mouth, or S.A.M. speech synthesis program... Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Old Fart Playing Old Games\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-05-21T21:00:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"The Old Fart Playing Old Games\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"The Old Fart Playing Old Games\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"The Old Fart Playing Old Games\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/#\/schema\/person\/8a3d0905ed7ae3b10152ea449386bd19\"},\"headline\":\"PokerSAM \u2013 The Talking Poker Opponent for the Atari 400\/800\/XL\/XE\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-05-21T21:00:55+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\"},\"wordCount\":275,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"\",\"keywords\":[\"Apple II\",\"Atari 8-bit\",\"Commodore 64\",\"games\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Computers\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/oldfartplayingoldgames.com\/index.php\/2023\/05\/21\/pokersam-the-talking-poker-opponent-for-the-atari-400-800-xl-xe\/\",\"name\":\"PokerSAM \u2013 The Talking Poker Opponent for the Atari 400\/800\/XL\/XE - 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