The SPO256-AL2 was a wonderful chip at the time. The sound of that chip now sounds very "Retro-robotic". I have one stashed away in my parts stock, just in case I ever want to add it to a home automation system one day. Regarding the future of text-to-speech, I think the demand for more natural sounding results and the availability of more addressing space will probably favor sample playback for most apps. On 2/3/12, Mark Hanchey wrote: > I knew microchip had been a maker of chips for a long time but I didn't > realize how long until today. I once owned a tandy color computer in > the 80's and bought the speech and sound pack for it. Today I was > thinking about the system and the sound pack and decided to dig around > for info about that pack . The pack expanded the system to do text to > speech and also extra audio using the ay series of sound chips. To my > surprise I found that the micro in that pack and the sound allophone > chip were made by microchip. The part numbers were : > SP0256B - Narrator speech processor - text to speech algorithm > included, 3.12Mhz > PIC7040 - 4kb rom, 2k ram, 1.78Mhz > > The site here has the datasheets: > ftp://maltedmedia.com/coco/MANUALS/TANDY/HARDWARE/TANDY_HW/PAK/SPEECHSOUN= D/ > > > Anyone know why microchip didn't continue to support text to speech as I > don't really see any of their current products supporting that area. I > just found it interesting that all the time growing up I was using a pic > chip and never knew it . I would really love it if microchip produced a > newer version of the chip, I could see lots of potential for such a > chip. That or just a general sound chip like the AY-3 series yamaha did > would be useful for function generators and sound effects. > > Mark > > -- > http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive > View/change your membership options at > http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist > --=20 http://www.piclist.com PIC/SX FAQ & list archive View/change your membership options at http://mailman.mit.edu/mailman/listinfo/piclist .