I have rewritten this page to be sort of like a "self-discovery" product guide of the Words+ Commpac System 2000. To re-iterate the backstory. In late 2019 I was really getting into the NEC Versa series laptops and found a 1994 NEC Versa M/75CP PC-470-1571 on e-bay for around $75.00, and it came with this weird attachment on the bottom that looked like some kind of piece of rackmount musical equipment from the early 90's called a "Words+ Commpac System 2000". Upon taking delivery of the machine, I kinda'-sorta' half-inquired on VOGONS about what that box could be and someone answered saying it was an AAC unit which allows people who are unable to speak, to...well...speak. But as I dug more and more down the rabbit hole of this piece of technology, the more interesting stuff I found out about it. This page focuses on the Words+ Unit Itself.

I reckon this model was released sometime in or around 1993-1994. The NEC Versa M/75CP it was attached to had a build date of December 1994, so likely this machine went to Louisiana State University Hospital in 1995. The unit itself was attached to the bottom of the laptop with Velcro, the laptop had it's 1.44MB floppy drive swapped with a battery (a standard feature of the Versa), and the Words+ was connected via a PCMCIA Type II 16-bit Serial port card, and the Parallel Port.

FRONT CONTROLS/PORTS (left to right)

• Power/Volume - Turning clockwise powers on the unit and adjusts it's volume
• Charge - This is a charging port, it apparently does NOT power the AAC, it just charged the original 12V NiCAD battery it had
• Signal LED - This lights up when the device is first powered on, and when it's communicating with the PC
• Speaker - This port is for a single monorual, external speaker
• Headphoone - This sport is likely for a monorual or one-ear headphone for the user to listen to communications in private
• Self-Added Power Port - This I wired in, it's a 1/8" phono jack to power the AAC off an AC Adapter using the Battery Connector inside. I basically lopped off the connector to the leaking battery, and wired it into the jack. This makes this modification not affect the acutal originality thtat much (just a hole drilled in front for the jack). It works pretty well at 12v DC 1A from my adjustable power supply.

REAR CONTROLS/PORTS (left to right)

• Joystick - This allows you to attach a 4-button controller, it IS compatible with Atari/Commodore/Sega controllers (!!!)
• Parallel Port Passthrough - This allows the AAC to be attached to a PC via parallel, and allow a printer to output from it
• Switch Ports - These 1/8" phono ports are used for "switches" to control the AAC, these switches are varied and different

There is a port on the side of the unit whose purpose I am not at all sure about. It's not labeled. It could be the actual power source for it possibly that I did not notice till later.

The unit as it was setup on the Versa was a single NiCad in the Words+ and a pair of batteries in the laptop. The parallel port of the laptop plugged into a ribbon cable snaking into the case of the System 2000, and the serial port on the system 2000 was connected to a modified Socket I/O COM port card (PCMCIA 16-bit Type II). This choice seemed very odd because I have successfully gotten the Words+ to work with COM1 on the Versa just fine. I'm only guessing that they may have needed the other serial port for something else at LSU.

User input is controlled in 2 ways - via the switch ports, or the joystick port. The Joystick port utilizes a regular, up to 5-switch, standard Atari 2600 style Joystick. I had a CX-40 Joystick from my Atari 2600 rig plugged into it and it did the job really well. Basically you use it just like a regular joystick - directions move highlight/cursor around in speech programs, and "fire" activates the option. I played with it a bit in Talking Screen and EZ-Keys, as well as AudScan which navigates the menus and word trees....which can be annoying or hilarious since it repeats whatever is on screen right as it shows up.

The other method is using the "Switches" ports. This is how Hawking controled the device originally. I did some looking around for AAC switches and found a company that sells them - AbleNet. It's pretty wild all the ways you can run one of these things. Push buttons, squeeze sticks, there is even a breath activated switch option. Has me thinking I might wire up some of my own for the menus on my unit possibly to try out for a future video.

• Beautiful Betty - raspy female voice that I guess is supposed to be like a pretty "goyil", lol
• EEPROM Earnie - Sounds a lot like Perfect Paul, but a little more...uh, sounds a Urologist to me...
• Frail Frank - Nasally Raspy Male Voice, sounds like his name should be Saul, and he eats lots of tunafish
• Huge Harry - Middle aged adult man voice, sounds a bit like a 40 year old engineer to me
• Kit The Kid - Sounds like a voice of a Peanut's Character, Marcie is a very close match (ie "Hi, Sir.")
• Perfect Paul - Sounds like Stephen Hawking's AAC, sort of superhero-esque voice (new note - because it IS Stephen Hawking's voice!)
• Rough Rita - Sounds like a Chain Smoker, or E.T., not sure which
• Uppity Ursula - Seattle Book Club Member, contributes to the local arts ccommunity, loves coffee
• Whispering Wanda - This is perfect for the "rofflecopter" meme - swaswaswaswaswaswaswaswa

An interesting new development on this is a recent video on YouTube I found for the DECTalk speech synthesizer. That's where all of the voices came from, and that's where I might dig for some more information on what can be done with this. It was interesting learning about this.

In mid 2022 I did some digging on the "wayback machine" on Words+'s official website and came across this article regarding what possibly is the late stage of this device. I've quoted it below.

(From Words+ Website in 1996) The CommPac combines voice synthesizer, SoftKey, sound amplifier, touch panel electronics, and digitized sound electronics into a single unit that mounts directly under your notebook computer (in this case an NEC Versa M/75CP with 3M MicroTouch "TouchPen"). This results in a more integrated package with all items conveniently and attractively housed together.

Commpac is affordably priced because it only contains the items you need. The basic package consists of a vbice synthesizer and a Switch Adapter.

So what I likely have here is a earlier (1994) Words+ System 2000 "CommPac" with the switch adapter, digital audio synthesizer, and the touch screen capabilities come from an actual touch screen computer (NEC Versa M/75CP). It announces "Welcome to MultiVoice 1.128" when powered on though it sounds like it's saying "Wally Words" (LOL). I've been seriously tempted to e-mail Words+ to inquire more on this device, and may do so in the not too distant future just to find out more about it beyond just what I have. Whiile it might be considered "obsolete" for someone suffering from ALS or another communications hindering condition, it would work great as a robotic voice in a unique musical project on BandLab (I'm calling it "Words Elite" currently).

The Commpac Words+ System 2000 appears to possess a lot of traits and features of the DECTalk series of speech synthesizers. That's because, it basically IS a modified DECTalk. I thought I truly had something unique from a hardware perspective until Tech Tangents put up his video on the DECTalk DTC01, which features all the same voices as the Words+ System 2000 (though I think the System 2000 has a few more), and apparently has a lot of the same features.

Looking at that first picture, you can kind of tell how "hackneyed" together this whole thing actually is. The chassis is made out of individual sheets of haircell plastic - the same as my Hondo Paul Dean II guitars pickguard is made out of (except thicker). The circuit boards screw into standoffs that were "plastiwelded" on, as well as the three strips on the top for the velcro that attached it to the NEC Versa M/75CP Laptop computer it came with. It uses a regular project speaker in the top to output audio (kind of in a bad place - right under the Versa's hard drive). As you can see in the picture, there are 2 circuit boards, one is an actual DIGITAL Equipement Corporation (DEC) branded circuit board featuring a Speaker I/O (that shuts off the internal speaker), a headphone jack, a charge jack, a status LED, a power/volume knob, and then 2 ports in the back - a serial port (9-pin), and a 15-pin port of some kind that looks like it might be the one Tech Tangents was using with a Terminal. Either way, the whole thing has sort of a home-made "built in my uncle's garage with love" sort of feel to it. Very 90's booteeky. The whole thing was powered by a NiCAD battery of unknown voltage or amperage. This was removed and replaced with a 1/8" mono connector so I could use an Atari 2600 style power supply (or actually a few different power supplies) with it.

Above is the DEC branded circuit board which contains all of the synthesizer circuitry. This is obviously a multi-layer - at least 3 - circuit board as it features a lot of vias that seem to have no traces going to them. It does work but it has some problems with just powering on with a straight red light on sometimes, and sometimes having a "weak" and distorted output voice from time to time. This is likely a mix of failing capacitors (it started getting a very very faint "fishy" smell in 2023), weak solder joints, and the fact that I still have not been able to pin down what kind of power supply this thing could use, or how much power that original battery pack had, as I've used a bunch of different ones with varying degrees of success. I have not a friggin clue what the 4 dip-switches do in the middle, let alone what that second 2 row DB-15 port is for for sure. That said, I have managed to get it working again a few times this year, but it smells faintly of fish (bad caps), and makes a weird, long, farting noise along side the "Welcome to Multivoice 1.1.28" announcement upon launch, when it works right. The rest of the time it either has a faint distorted voice, or does not initiate at all and gives a solid LED. I have found, using a multi-voltage power supply, dipping beneath 7.5VDC leads it to blink the LED light meaning there's a failed battery. There's also a chance there's some problems with the Texas Instruments MC3403N quad Op-Amp as I found sometimes shorting that would bring the machine back around - but it seems to be more a power issue because I get a more consistant re-power up when I hit the far top-rightmost capacitor with a screwdriver, which then, the flatulance starts up.

This other PCB looks like some kind of board straight out of a floppy controller unit almost, but it's obviously purpose made to clear that speaker (perhaps), and has fairly minimal circuitry other than a DB-9 Joystick port (works with ATari 2600/Commodore Joysticks), 2 1/8" ports for "Switches" (the items I mentioned you could buy from that AAC accessory website above), a Parallel to Printer Passthrough, with a Parallel cable coming out of it. The wires coming from this are all coming from the power-input area of the DEC board and all wires were originally wrapped in cloth wire.....and not particularly very neat I might add. I'm toying with cleaning this up at some point and making the wiring more tidy. Beneath that is the big honkin NiCAD battery which was pretty much gone when I got the device. Plugging into the charging port did nothing, so I wired up a 1/8" power jack to it. Later I may replace with a barrel style jack - most likely when I recap it.