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   		PHUK MAGAZINE - Phile 7 of 10
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			NO GIFT FROM HALLMARK - DrKaos
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After the 2600 article by FyberLyte ("The Magical Tone Box", 2600 Vol
10, No.4), I hunted in vain through my local Rat Shack for an
ISD1000A but without any joy. Of course I did not plan to do Red
Boxing, as it doesn't work in the UK, but I did think that the chip
had applications that could stretch as far as a whole number
including CF, KP & ST ....

When the buzz started about the Hallmark cards that could record
speech & tones began, I looked all over for a UK source of the
Hallmark cards, even going as far to phone their UK HQ, only to learn
that they were not imported into the UK. I did however find a UK
supplier, DISET UK, and phoned them with the express idea of
engineering some "samples" out of them on the grounds that I wanted
to buy several hundred or so of these cards (yeah right!). As this
approach seemed to fail I took the backup approach of ordering two
cards by mail order for about 12 quid. The cards arrived, and then
some MORE cards arrived, and then still MORE cards arrived .... until
I had 6 in all...:)

I dismantled my card and removed the microphone and crappy little
speaker and then put the whole mess into a DAT tape box along with a
record/playback switch, an actuation press switch and a phono jack
for the imput (throwing away the mike in the process). I won't bore
you with the details of the actual construction because that was
covered in 2600 Vol 11, No 1 ("A Gift from Hallmark" by Bernie S).
Suffice it to say that anyone with half a brain and a soldering iron
can figure out how it works and box it adding switches etc themselves.

In testing my box I found that I had plenty of space for a good long
sequence: Break, Clear Forward, KP2, <num>, ST .... but never managed
to succesfully seize a trunk with it (although the break seemed
fine). About this time my tone generating machine (an Amiga) broke,
and I also learned that the timings were suspect in the box proggie I
was using, so I just put it down to the program, threw the box in the
drawer and forgot about it.

In the meantime I had given out cards to several people, so that they
could experiment with them also. One of these nefarious individuals
was at that time boxing with a Walkman and was suffering tape
stretch, and thought that the Diset Box would be cool.

I forgot all about the Diset Box for a while, being occupied with
other things, but at a 2600 meeting a while ago the subject of the
Diset cards came up and I asked the individual concerned whether he
had ever constructed the box. Yes, he had, he replied, but it didn't
work!! Apparently, using the same tones and trunks that he could
succesfully box over with his Walkman, he had loaded up the box and
set off only to find that what did work with his Walkman, did not
work with the box :( Shame!

Now I thought about this recently, and it seems that there could be
several reasons for the failure: (i) volume not loud enough, (ii)
distortion or clipping of frequencies caused by the algorithm used in
the digitisation process, or (iii) distortion caused by using the
crappy little speaker that came with the card. Unfortunately my Amiga
is still broken, and until I buy a soundblaster card I cannot
generate tones, and that has to wait until I get gainful employment!

Still, if anyone has succesfully overcome the problems with the Diset
box by improving amplification or speaker quality PHUK magazine would
like to hear about it. In the meantime here is the address of Diset
UK should anyone want to play with a Diset Box themselves.

Diset UK, Portica House, Addison Road, Chilton Industrial Estate,
Sudbury, Suffolk, CO10 6YJ. Phone: 0787-310775

- DrKaos

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