SP0256A-AL2 Speech Synthesis Chip, 1986
Given how fast things move in the electronics world, I guess 22-year-old chips are old enough to call "vintage" (though I stop short of calling them "antique"). This is a vintage speech synthesis chip that used to be sold at Radio Shack in the 1980s. It has encoded on it 59 sounds which, arranged properly, can produce intelligible if robotic English speech.
This is the chip I thought I was getting when I bought this speech chip. I don't fault the seller for that misunderstanding, because the packaging has it mislabeled.
This one has another advantage over that one, in that its packaging can be opened without being damaged. I know this has been done because the eBay auction had a picture of the chip outside the packaging! I don't know if the chip works, but even if it doesn't it makes a nice little curiosity.
I see from that packaging that using this chip requires additional components and skill in project assembly. Happily, I have those things - even the elusive 3.12 MHz timing crystal! I bet that bullet point on the package was conceived as a way to avoid unpleasant disappointments on the part of people who might buy it and then expect it to sit there and talk with no further prodding. Sorry! You have to work for your robot-voice!
The green widget at the bottom of the shot is a ZIF (zero insertion force) socket of the appropriate size for this chip. Chips in this format, the Dual Inline Package (DIP), come from the factory with their pins pointing slightly outward, and you have to bend them a bit to get them to fit in breadboards or ordinary chip sockets. Plus, ordinary sockets fit the chip pins very snugly and it takes a surprising amount of violence to seat a chip properly in one. The pressure required for some sockets is so great that if you're not careful, a slip will cause pins to bend very suddenly and rip your fingertips open. Don't laugh! I've had it happen and nothing looks worse on a circuit board than your own blood!!!!1
OK, you can laugh if you really want to.
I'm leery of subjecting vintage circuitry to that sort of punishment, especially during the course of prototyping. ZIF sockets don't need any of that bending or shoving so I plan to plug the ZIF socket into a breadboard, then drop the chip into the ZIF socket for prototyping. Clumsy, but for a leisurely low-frequency 1980s-type circuit it should work.
SP0256A-AL2 Speech Synthesis Chip, 1986
Given how fast things move in the electronics world, I guess 22-year-old chips are old enough to call "vintage" (though I stop short of calling them "antique"). This is a vintage speech synthesis chip that used to be sold at Radio Shack in the 1980s. It has encoded on it 59 sounds which, arranged properly, can produce intelligible if robotic English speech.
This is the chip I thought I was getting when I bought this speech chip. I don't fault the seller for that misunderstanding, because the packaging has it mislabeled.
This one has another advantage over that one, in that its packaging can be opened without being damaged. I know this has been done because the eBay auction had a picture of the chip outside the packaging! I don't know if the chip works, but even if it doesn't it makes a nice little curiosity.
I see from that packaging that using this chip requires additional components and skill in project assembly. Happily, I have those things - even the elusive 3.12 MHz timing crystal! I bet that bullet point on the package was conceived as a way to avoid unpleasant disappointments on the part of people who might buy it and then expect it to sit there and talk with no further prodding. Sorry! You have to work for your robot-voice!
The green widget at the bottom of the shot is a ZIF (zero insertion force) socket of the appropriate size for this chip. Chips in this format, the Dual Inline Package (DIP), come from the factory with their pins pointing slightly outward, and you have to bend them a bit to get them to fit in breadboards or ordinary chip sockets. Plus, ordinary sockets fit the chip pins very snugly and it takes a surprising amount of violence to seat a chip properly in one. The pressure required for some sockets is so great that if you're not careful, a slip will cause pins to bend very suddenly and rip your fingertips open. Don't laugh! I've had it happen and nothing looks worse on a circuit board than your own blood!!!!1
OK, you can laugh if you really want to.
I'm leery of subjecting vintage circuitry to that sort of punishment, especially during the course of prototyping. ZIF sockets don't need any of that bending or shoving so I plan to plug the ZIF socket into a breadboard, then drop the chip into the ZIF socket for prototyping. Clumsy, but for a leisurely low-frequency 1980s-type circuit it should work.