I made a small improvement here, any keystroke now repeats the word, apart from RETURN, which moves on to the next word-number. This was because I couldn't always make out what Jack Benny was saying the first time.

There is a special "speech" syntax for the SOUND command. Normally, as you know, it's

There are four sound speech commands - say word in Phrase ROM n using its word number, say word in Phrase ROM n using its absolute ROM location, initialise and send speech data from RAM to speech processor, send subsequent speech data from RAM to speech processor.

Here we use the first command - which is actually &FFFn. UK Phrase ROM A, the only one ever issued at home, is allocated Phrase ROM number 15, or &F, so the command to operate it is &FFFF, more commonly written as -1. We have to use -16 for the US ROM because it has Phrase ROM number 0, which gives us &FFF0, or -16.

I'm sure I don't need to mention that I've soon put my new 118-file disc to good use!

Click here to return to US BBC Model B