Speak & Spell (toy)

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For the Depeche Mode album of the same name see Speak & Spell (album).

A later Speak & Spell model with membrane keyboard

The Speak & Spell was a popular and revolutionary electronic toy consisting of a speech synthesizer and a keyboard. It was introduced at the summer Consumer Electronics Show in June 1978.[1]

1 Background
2 Electronics
3 Games included
4 Trivia
5 Circuit bending
6 External links

[edit] Background

The Speak & Spell was created by Texas Instruments during the late 1970s. Speak & Spell was the first of a three-part talking educational toy series that also included Speak & Read and Speak & Math. The Speak & Spell was sold in the United States, Canada, and in Europe; it was originally advertised as a tool for helping young children to become literate, learn to spell and learn the alphabet. The Speak & Spell had a distinct orangish-red with yellow color scheme with a light blue border around the membrane keyboard. The early Speak & Spell units were sold in 1978. Variants included the Speak & Read, which was yellow with blue and green accents and focused on reading comprehension, and the Speak and Math (Maths in the UK), grey with blue and orange and centered on mathematics. A French Speak & Spell, La Dictee Magique, was sold primarily in Canada, while an Italian Grillo Parlante and German Buddy were sold in their respective countries. The German Buddy is particularly rare. A later model, the Super Speak & Spell, with a much slimmer case and LCD screen, was released later.

[edit] Electronics

The unit could use either 4 "C" batteries or 6 volt DC power adapter with positive tip polarity. The display was a vacuum fluorescent display. The original Speak & Spells had raised hard-plastic keys while later units had a membrane keyboard. The Speak & Spell used the first single-chip voice synthesizer, the TI TMC 0280, which utilized a 10th-order linear predictive coding model. A variant of this chip with a very similar voice would eventually be utilized in certain Chrysler vehicles in the 1980s as the Electronic Voice Alert.

[edit] Games included

Speak & Spell had five distinct learning games: Spell, Say It, Secret Letter, Mystery Code, and Word. Spell is the classic word spelling game where the participant must spell ten words to the best of their ability. The Speak & Spell also had the ability to expand its vocabulary using expansion modules that plugged into a slot near the battery compartment. One such expansion module was a tie-in for the toy's notable appearance in the movie E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and asked young spellers to try their hand at such words as "geranium" and "extraterrestrial".

[edit] Trivia

Some musicians — primarily club DJs or those in synthpop and electronica — have used the Speak & Spell in their compositions, including LFO, Kraftwerk, OMD, Aphex Twin, Venetian Snares, Moog Cookbook, Meat Beat Manifesto, Hexstatic, Darren Emerson, Freezepop, Optiganally Yours and Kid Whatever; it is also featured in the remake of the song "Behind Blue Eyes" as performed by Limp Bizkit. Even the Japanese black metal band Sigh and preeminent Christian rock band Resurrection Band have recorded with the device. Also, comedian Dane Cook impersonates a Speak & Spell on his album Harmful if Swallowed, joking about how the voice sounded like the toy was possessed.

Additionally, the Speak & Spell shows up from time to time as a pop-culture reference in various television shows and webcomics.

[edit] Circuit bending

The Speak & Spell is one of the most popular toys for use in "circuit bending" applications, where the user intentionally short circuits a noise-generating device to create other-wordly noises. It is especially prized in this respect for its large vocabulary.