VTech Little Talking Scholar

[goldenbaby]

First project! Gotta start basic or I'll give up way to quick. I bought this little guy at the thrift store for 2 bucks, figured I'd give this circuit bendery a gander. After messing with the circuit for a couple hours, I gave up out of dissatisfaction with sounds I got. I got some good seemingly aleatronic tones, and some random piecings of various phrases, and even some streams of chip confusion, but none of them were reproducable. Today, I did a search and saw on sailormouth (a CB blog) that someone has bent this toy before.

Anybody got some ideas of what I could do with this? Even if it's one bend with some bypass switches and and 1/4" output, I want to make a project of this. I just need to get my brain thinking and figured maybe you had tips or suggestions.

I look forward to posting more on this board

[kick52]

IIRC, this machine only has one chip and a crystal clock thingy.
You can short the clock to make it glitch, though it's really unstable and can crash the machine easily.

[justindeloop]

yeah man ive got one of these things and i couldnt find anything interesting on it, im afraid.

i wouldnt recommend as a 'first project'. i got so frustrated looking for bends on this piece o crap, especially after seeing that video you mentioned - the guy never responded to my email asking him for advice though so... right now its just sitting on my shelf in pieces looking sad - tbh i'll probs just salvage it for spare components.

[computer at sea]

See if you can get your hands on one of the Vtech laptops, like the talking whiz kid or talking whiz kid plus.  They pop up in thrift stores pretty frequently in my neck of the woods, and you can practically drop a screwdriver on the board and find a good bend.

[goldenbaby]

Thanks for the input guys.  At least now that people are telling me there's no great bends on here, I haven't lost my hope of success in circuit bending.  I might try a voltage starve pot, somebody suggested it.  Did any of you guys try that?

OK, I may have to save this one for down the road anyway.  Tuesday morning is the debut and electronic toys or instruments always go fast.  Hopefully I find something a little better there, although it tends to be the no-name junk.

[goldenbaby]

Oh, and I just found this a few minutes ago.  This guy can't have been lying when he said he worked hard on this one.  He probably built extra circuits for it.

http://mobiusband.com/blog/?p=352

[goldenbaby]

Hoky Mocha Shkloka!  I found a Talking Whiz Kid Plus at the shop today, $3.50.  New post on that.

[3rdness]

Hey Everybody,

This is my first post on here.  lots of good info and interesting reading.

The little talking scholar is not a "basic" bend.  I've spent a shitload of time finding the good stuff in here.  But i really feel its worth it.  Final product is complicated to use, but that just means theres more depth to explore.  Basically a really fun, minimal rhythm machine.

That video link is mine.  I have just finished another little talking scholar and it is even more insanely cool. I will draw out a diagram and post it soon, I promise.

You can see a few new vids here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=090DnJfte8k
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Db2aV4v7V4

I didn't build any circuits on the first one, but this one has a 555 LFO that controls the tempo.

In addition it has various streams of repeating and random notes, and looping numbers 1-7, as well as a few different filter/feedback pots.

Hope you enjoy, I will post more info on how to do this soon.

thanks, Noam

[goldenbaby]

I only noticed your reply today.  You really outdid yourself here.  Hope to see those diagrams, since my hope for this has been renewed, although I'll be saving it for later.  I haven't got the tools and supplies to be adding circuits of any sort quite yet.