# Cowlacious ST-200 board and new ISD chips?



## Death Wraith (Mar 23, 2006)

Am I right in assuming the current ST-200 board being sold by Cowlacious uses the newer ISD 17xxx series chip? I bought a board from them a couple years ago that uses the older ISD chip. I'll need to get a new recorder board as well to use the new ISD chips, correct?

DW


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

It wouldn't surprise me if that were true. If the board pictured on the Cowlacious site is the ST-200, then the ISD chip has the same number of pins, but I'll bet they're not interchangable with the ST-100 board. Drop a note to Carl; I'm curious, too, as I have a number of Scary Terry boards that I built before Cow started selling them. Be nice to have a longer recording chip with better sound quality option.


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## gadget-evilusions (Jan 26, 2007)

All the new cowlacious recorder and player boards do use the new isd chips and are not compatible with the old isds. I already got a few of them in. The scary terry audio servo boards have been changed to to not include the on board isd chip playing ability.


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## Death Wraith (Mar 23, 2006)

Wow! So in last years prop I triggered a ST board from a Prop-1. But now I need a separate sound source that feeds into the ST board? Seems like a step backward in design and convenience. Any idea why???


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## Death Wraith (Mar 23, 2006)

But instead of a Prop-1 you could use one of Cow's Player/recorder boards, have it triggered by a PIR and fed into the servo board, right?


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## gadget-evilusions (Jan 26, 2007)

I don't know the exact reason for the change, my guess is, with the new circuitry required for the new isd chip the scary terry board wouldn't have been able to fit into a bucky skull anymore. 

Yes, you can just put one of their pir's directly on the new player board, and then run your 1/8" audio cable from the player board into the skull where you can have the audio servo board mounted.


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## Death Wraith (Mar 23, 2006)

Here's the email I got from Carl today:

Hi Art,

The ST-200 board doesn't have an ISD chip socket on the board. The 2500 series chips were discontinued by the manufacturer and have become increasingly harder to get and have over doubled in price. The new 17xxx series chips take more control components that the old 25xxx series did, so we just removed the ISD section from the board instead of making everyone pay for the extra components that they may not even use.

We do still have some of the older player boards that you could use to drive the ST-200 board, if you have a recorder for the 25xxx series. Or, you could by the new Recorder/Player board and use it to drive the ST-200 board. The new Recorder/Player board does have better sound quality, the ability to hook up a motion sensor and a few other features that are nice to have. The only advantage that one of our Recorder/Player or Player boards has is the ability to be triggered and the new dual message mode. Also, the ST-200 can still be run from a CD player, tape player, MP3 player, etc. just like the old board.

Hope that helps,

Carl Cowley

[email protected]


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## undead41 (Nov 14, 2006)

man...i better pray my "chipcorder" for my isd 2500 chips holds up...i still have a few 2500's kickin around and 3 players...i'd hate to not be able to put new sounds on them...


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## Otaku (Dec 3, 2004)

Scary Terry still has instructions for making a recorder/player board for the 2500 chips on his website. Easy to build.

http://www.scary-terry.com/dsr/dsr.htm


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