>       I'm quite new to PIC programming and IC electronics.
>       Can anyone suggest a good alternative to the GI SP0256-AL2
>       8-bit Speech Processor?

Almost anything makes a good replacement for an SP0256 ! - for example, a
resistor or a small piece of gravel :-)
Their speech quality is utterly terrible. So bad in fact that you generally
have to know what they are saying in order to know what they are saying.
Present a message to someone who hasn't heard it before and odds are they
won't understand it.

The ISD series devices

        http://www.isd.com/

which store sound samples that you input should be entirely suitable for
your purposes. They are relatively cheap and very available. The ISD2560
stores 60 seconds of speech at very good speech quality. It has a parallel
interface. If you want to use less ins and an SPI interface there are their
newer 4000 series devices. If you have a limited vocabulary such as speaking
date, month and year as you note, then careful tailoring of fragments of the
message will allow them to be concatenated almost seamlessly with a quality
in excess of "telephone quality" speech.

If you want true text to speech capability consider a  Winbond WTS701. These
are only available in a largish SMD package and are probably more complex
than you need. Winbond now own ISD.



            Russell McMahon

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