[rescue] Anyone have some DECtalk gear?

[Cory Smelosky]

On 04/09/2013 03:16 PM, Robert Darlington wrote:
>
> 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.

What was the total cost of all the components?

>
> -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
>> _______________________________________________
>> rescue list - http://www.sunhelp.org/mailman/listinfo/rescue
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>


-- 
Cory Smelosky
http://gewt.net Personal stuff
http://gimme-sympathy.org Experiments