[rescue] Anyone have some DECtalk gear?

[Robert Darlington]

I just bought a pair of chips from Sparkfun and a little audio amp board
and will make my own.   That crazy price tag, which as I understand it is
cheap for these things, really annoyed me into taking action.  If I make
more than one circuit board I'll open source it.  Basically I'm going to
make a replica of the prop used in WarGames.  Bud enclosure with a speaker
and a wire hanging out.  Easiest build ever.

-Bob


On Tue, Apr 9, 2013 at 12:08 PM, Sheldon T. Hall <shel at artell.net> wrote:

> On 4/8/2013 8:05 PM, Cory Smelosky wrote:
> > Hello!
> >
> > Does anyone happen to have any DECtalk gear they're looking
> > to get rid of?  I need it for a little project of mine.
>
> About 20 years ago, I worked on a project for NBC; it was a satellite-based
> corporate/affiliate news system.  One of the original peripherals specified
> was the DECtalk.  The idea was to have the scheduling news "read aloud" in
> TV stations' control rooms.
>
> The affiliate stations rebelled.  The last thing they needed was more noise
> in their control rooms, so NBC changed the spec and we used video titlers
> instead.  The cost of the DECtalk was a problem, too, for the smaller
> stations.
>
> So, you might find a local NBC TV station that bought one back in the day,
> and still has it.
>
> There were other text-to-speech devices back in that era, though I don't
> recall if any of them sang.
>
> -Shel
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