In the early 80s I worked at a library, where we'd loan these units out for a week at a time. It was the most popular item we offered to the public.

The old voice is legit how it had to sound due to the tech of the day. We all know 2019 tech means the "new" voice is clearly a caracature of the old bitcrunched speech. They did a decent enough job balancing the need to mimic the original while actually making it fully intelligible, but you can never shake the knowledge that it's a gimmick. I guess this is why an old machine that's arguably inferior to even a crappy smart phone is still a highly coveted relic. I compare the satisfaction of hearing the original voice to the sound of degaussing a CRT monitor. Long dead tech for a reason, but darn will it be missed.

2:43 the jingles you listen as the Speak&Spell turn on are the same you can listen at the very beginning of the song "Home Computer" by Kraftwerk. Being one of the first examples of personal computer, I think it's a pretty awesome reference.

Wonder why a 2019 would still look so primitive. They could have put a nice LED or OLED screen in there. I think the new keyboard is a step down

Imagine being the 8-Bit wife, your husband runs to the door, excited for a package. It's a Speak and Spell then he runs off to his backyard workshop and all you hear is him spelling out words on his Speak and Spell haha EDIT: I see a lot of people in the reply to this comment think I'm being offensive. Let me be clear, I love David's content and I thoroughly enjoyed this video. I wasn't making a disparaging remark about him or his content nor was I making any kind of comment about his home life. It was just a joke about a grown man buying and using a children's toy which out of context is funny. If the joke offended you or you thought I was being mean, that wasn't my intention with my joke at all.

The reason it doesn’t have the Texas Instruments logo on it is because it is not made by TI, but a company called Basic Fun which acquired the rights in 2019. How cool would it have been if someone else would have thought of that and marketed some weird voice synthesizer machines instead. Just a thought ✨

These seemed incredibly hi-tech when they came out, I remember playing with one in the early 80s, it was like having a robot, or talking computer. If I was shown an IPad back then, I wouldn’t have believed it, it would have seemed like magic!

Interesting fact - the speak and spell was used by music duo LFO from Sheffield and Leeds in England. The sound chip on the original sounds way more bit crushed and more interesting for sure. Original speak and spell all day long.

If the screen was a bit better, I think kids would still love it. A students mom gave me a ride home from the school I was subbing at a few years ago, and I invited her in for a cup of coffee, the kid came along (I think he was 8 or 9), he saw my speak & spell (the button version from 1978), and started playing with it. 2 Hours later he was so addicted to it we had a hard time prying it from his hands - he was totally obsessed with getting the words right.

The really impressive thing is what an index it is of how far chips have come. The original Speak&Spell was truly cutting edge, driving phoneme data through the LPC engine in a TMS5100 chip, drawing them from 128 KB PROM-the largest capacity ROM you could get at the time. It was state of the art stuff. The new one probably plays 16-bit samples from a gigabyte flash memory like you can buy in an SD card through an off the shelf DAC…the chips probably cost less than the display.

I loved my Speak & Spell back in the 80's best Christmas present ever. 😁

Back in Brazil, in the 80s', when my father worked for Texas Instruments, the company gave gifts for my brother and me. One of the gifts was the Speak and Spell. I learned how to pronounce the letters and some words in English. I liked the CODE function and when I learned how that works I did CODE on paper with a lot of words and tried it on the toy. When I learned a programming language, I implemented the CODE function in BASIC and later in Java. That's not hard to do. I had lots of fun with this.

This product is clearly a nostalgia vehicle for older folks who remember these from when they were young. What I find ironic is that modern parents who buy one of these for nostalgia reasons can use the justification that it can be used as an educational tool by their kids, which is exactly the same justification many of them will have used back in the 80s and 90s, as kids themselves, when they begged their own parents to get them a computer so they could play games.

A friend of mine had it back in the 80s, it was really astonishing. I remember she was afraid of the "angry" voice it had when you did multiple mistakes, she prayed me in panic not to write wrong just for the fun of it.

Is that 8-pin chip a SPI flash? If so, it's hackable...

Man, I wanted one of these when I was a kid back in the ‘70s SOOOOOO badly. But, I was just a little too old to need what it offered. I just wanted it for the amazing technology. Most toys back then didn’t have this kind of amazing functionality in one package like this did.

"There's not much here" welcome to modern electronics. It's all done using anonymous microcontrollers or the mystery blob

I remember as a kid getting the raised button model for Christmas, then about a year later the membrane surface ones came out. I thought that was so cool and futuristic, I was jealous of the kids who got them. Looking back now, with my clicky mechanical keyboard under my fingers, I'd have to say raised buttons all the way.

I agree, Money saved on circuit board, the company should've improved the screen. I think parents will buy this for nostalgia for kids under 5.

I'm not a kid from the 80's I'm from the 2000's but mate, watching this videos just make me so happy and nostalgic although I never experienced that childhood. I think it's because I got to play with some 80's toys and I just thought they were cool. I love your videos so much! Please keep it up, and thanks for bringing to us this experience again!!!!!

Fun fact: the speak n spell shares some chips with the Chrysler "Electronic Voice Alert" system found in chryslsr cars from the era

I don't think the manufacturer intended these Speak & Spell remakes to actually be used as a toy. Looking at it as a novelty decoration that won't be used very often helps me understand the cheapness and intentionally bad screen. It's just not meant to be played with!

Very true. I showed my speak and spell from the 80’s and the 10 year old girl looked at me, speaking dutch, interested in english lessons. She was not interested in it at all. She was thinking ‘you are weird being enthusiastic about that’

Now spell ANSWER

I agree. There is zero purpose for it as the original one was intended. Kids have stuff that is so much better that this may as well be a stone tablet and chisels. Totally nostalgia and if you get it for your kids, it'll never be used. I didn't even realize they came out with a new one. I can't even believe that someone greenlighted it as a legit product.

I think we can all agree the new Speak and Spell is just a novelty gift for adults born of the era. As is the re-issue of the Evel Knievel stunt bike playset by Ideal and the re-issue of the Big Trak by MB, all of which I own, lol. Would you consider making a comparison video of the Big Trak; new versus old? Thanks again for your refreshing content and I always look forward to your videos! Merry Christmas 🎄

“Well, it’s time to take this thing apart.” Me: “it’s just going to be an epoxy blob isn’t it.”

Just a thought, those original batteries you took out of the new speak and spell are probably still good, and that tab was the only thing keeping it from turning on.

The battery compartment needed a redesign anyway, as nowadays most countries will require it using an actual screw, so kids can't take out the batteries and swallow them. Parents complained that it gave their kids too much energy.

My mom bought one for herself a couple months back. We played around with it and didn’t have any issues with the screen. Maybe there’s some variation between units. FWIW we had a ton of fun with it

You used to occasionally see these units’ screens used in low budget sci-fi movies, as they were the only thing that could display numbers _and_ letters! Sometimes they’d use its voice too!

As soon as I heard this thing in "Heaven Says" I wanted this so bad so I could make it sing. Idk what the hell is wrong with me but I want one of these from 1978 and look at when this comment is being written 😭💀💀

I remember as a kid in the 80s seeing the speak and spell (and it’s brothers the math and reading ones) and being amazed that it could TALK! And it was so cool being in ET too!

1:44 I like the subtle "dammit" that David uttered.

i will say that my old Speak and Spell was an amazing teaching tool for my son when we adopted him from China at 4 years old, not knowing a bit of English. He played with it for hours. Within 6 months he was speaking in sentences, and in a year, could spell most common English words...I think this device contributed to this fast learning!

I remember it when an American English teacher of mine, resident in Brazil, brought a model like this from the US. I created a computer course at his English school and developed some language learning software for TRS 80. As an electrical engineer, this caught my attention and was a very important and expected moment for me. I remember like it was today. Thanks for sharing.

Regarding hackability: I can't read the number on the chip, but I'm willing to guess that the little eight-pin chip next to the blob is a flash SPI rom containing certainly the audio samples but possibly also the software. It'd be interesting to dump it and see what's there. If you're very lucky it might be reprogrammable. I'm sure there's something cool you could do with it.

That brings back memories! Our family had the Speak & Spell with an expansion pack and a Speak & Read. "Wrong, try again" is burned into my mind. ;-)

In my own personal opinion the real reasoning why "Speak & Spell", "Speak & Read", Speak & Math(? think that was the name at least), and that other TI unit I can never remember the name of, were actually discontinued was because companies, such as VTech, came onto the scene in the late 1980's with vastly more sophisticated educational computer toys that incorporated virtually everything that all four of the TI units did into a single device with a pixelized LCD screens that offered simple animations and a better selection of games. For a period of a few years the major retailers of the era (K-Mart, Toys'R'Us, Brendles, etc...) often had anywhere from a half-aisle to a whole aisle dedicated to these edutainment electronics with all the big $100+ models being on display to try out. VTech is still a major player in the educational game-cartridge based video games console and hand held systems market, having released at least a good half-dozen or more educational video game system system platforms since the turn of the century. So it isn't that these types of educational toys have gone away, rather they've morphed into something quite different looking than what we use to have.

Seeing as we're taught to read from five/six in school, this would make a great infant-school or home-school teaching aid. Speaking from experience with my own four kids, now all adults, even if it never gets much home use, it still makes a great device for hard-pressed teachers to give out to six-seven year olds.

I explained to my kids that the Speak & Spell was my iPad before when I was young and before I got a computer. Seeing their wide eyes trying to contemplate the change in technology is priceless.

"C... R... A... P.... that is incorrect. The correct spelling of jungle is..." The entire purpose of this thing back in the 80s was making it say funny words.

If they really wanted to keep the brand alive, they should’ve just made a Speak and Spell app that maybe sounds like the original, with in-app purchases replacing the modules on the original unit. As an educational device for teaching kids to spell, it would’ve made a lot more sense.

Played with one as a kid. Thought I was living in the future. It was entertaining for it's time. Geez, I'm the target market.

I had one as a kid and it helped alot with early schooling. I think the new one should have brail on the keys and a word-by-word talking features. Both would be useful for kids with disabilities :) This device could be retooled to be a very useful device for many people, just gotta think outside the box ;)

Wanted one of these soooo badly as a kid. I remember a couple of friends bringing theirs to school after Christmas break. Of course we would try to make it say all kinds of bad words but the Speak & Spell knew better! 😂

Almost passed out at 2:58 lmao

Really enjoyed watching this video. Thanks for sharing. I had the 80s version of the Speak and Spell in 1983 when I was around 7. I absolutely loved it. I was the only child in my class to have one. Being dyslexic, it was a good way to learn to spell. I’m so grateful to have had an interactive toy that was a fun way to learn, considering the technology at the time. I recently bought the “ET model” on eBay can’t wait to receive it! My Dad has just informed me that my old one still works so will end up with an extra one. I also had speak and maths but unfortunately it apparently died. It was never quite quite as fun.

"ET phone home!" "Nah, you're stuck here, no circuit bending in _this_ Speak and Spell for you."

Proof positive that David can talk about ANYTHING and it is a worthwhile episode!

This was my favorite toy growing up (the 80s version is the model im familiar with) theres something about the voice that ive always loved. Hearing it makes my heart sing with nostalgia ❤

I love the new studio! first time watching in a while, and you're production is still the same level of amazing!

The difference in those batteries shows how efficient electronics have become in power usage terms - might be down to the display too though.

At 5:04 when the case is open, the small white rectangular part may be what I've seen in other devices, a holder for a few small coin cells which provide the short-lived power for the demo mode. Pulling that tab out switches from the (probably dead) coin cells to the batteries in the main compartment.

I got the vintage one that has the flat buttons on it last year I absolutely love it I didn't know they re-released these I wouldn't have bought it anyways thank you for this video comparing them and actually taking it apart

I just turned 31 and I remember absolutely loving these things when I was around 6-10yrs old. I still have this one, the grey one and the yellow one.

I was honestly waiting for "Petscii Robots invade the Speak and Spell" And the challenge of getting it to run on the older model :)

I think you were spot on with your assessment, David. Nostalgia is the only thing going for these, and given that originals can still be had for a decent price, one would be better off just seeking out one of the originals instead. I never had one myself eith, but knew some kids who did. The closest I got was a Mattel Brain Baffler game for Christmas one year.

The new one said, "That is right," whereas the old one said, "That is correct." The old one is gramatically correct.

"They shouldn't have called it 'Speak & Spell'. They should have called it 'Speak Like the Devil.' - Dane Cook.

I loved my Speak & Math, even played the "Number Stumper" guessing game even in high school. I was always hoping TI would re-release it with a dot-matrix screen like on their TI graphing calculators.

If anyone hasn’t watched The 8-Bit Guy’s video on Voice Synthesis, now would be the perfect time. It is delightful and the reason why I knew he wouldn’t regard this remake very highly 💫

If I were on the design team for the 2019 edition, I would have lobbied for a USB charging port and Bluetooth capability to drive modern earbuds. I think that since the modern edition could not be a 100% clone of the original, these features would bring a couple of 21st century technologies to the product w/o killing the nostalgia factor. Unless of course the design team felt part of the retro appeal would be for today's child to experience the thrill of changing batteries just like grandmama did before the turn of the century, Great video as always David, thanks!

I like how the eBay listing for a “1978 vintage” unit you show is clearly actually the 2019 reissue going by the picture - no TI logo.

David has once again made my day, all of the videos have a unique infinitely re-watchable characteristic.

Wow. Just gave mine from the 80s to my daughter. So glad you made this.

@3:55 I think his original speak and spell had a stroke like Dick Clark in his later years. It sounds like Dick Clark. Those units weren't that slurred.

"Not all change is progress." Paul Harvey. The whole Speak & Spell / Math / Read WAS amazing for the late 70s. Computers and Electronics (formally Popular Electronics) magazine featured an article on interfacing to a Sinclair ZX-81. Feb 83, "Talk Can be Cheap" pg. 39 available now, like so much else on-line!

I'm surprised they didn't re-release a three in one combo unit. Their was a speak and math, speak and spell, and a speak and... read? They certainly have the space for it.

IIRC the OG Speak-and-Spell voice was tied up with Chrysler! Chrysler got TI to do voice modulation in some of their higher end cars (New Yorker) and the S&S was a product of the repurposing of the voice modulator chipset. I also remember Chrysler charging more for a female voice! I think it was Chrysler -> Speak-and-Spell but it may be vice versa.

Offered the original to my son around his 6yo and he kept using it for a few days, successfully too. There is a narrow market for these kids that doesn't yet own a cellhone and are curious enough. I wouldn't even have tried the new version though, what's interesting is the original sound, and fiddling around with it makes it an entertaining project.

This is the only channel where I would watch an unboxing of a speak and spell.

My dad got me one at a car boot sale back in the 90s, I think he was more fascinated by it being able to synthesise a human(ish) voice than I was, I found it about as fun to use as a Sinclair ZX81, cos even at that point we had BBC micros (still!) in school that were "better", it was still just as bad mind, but at least you didn't end up with a numb finger that you did from "typing" on the membrane keyboard... :P

The speak & spell WAS amazing for 1978... it must be one of the first consumer applications of a voice synthsizer. I'm still impressed by its capabilities for that era, especially when you compare against other stuff in the subsequent decade or more. We still have the round hard button version which belonged to my older brother.

I don't know if there's a British version of this "reboot" version... but I bet it doesn't make the complete HASH the original British version made of the letter "Z". My cousin had the first generation raised button version and the British version of course had all the British spellings of the words (all the same words I understand - just the UK spellings). What always cracked us up was how the machine would pronounce the letter "Z". Obviously, the Brit version couldn't say Zee (although we knew you Americans used this weird way of saying the letter from Sesame Street which aired here almost unedited at the time too). Pressing Z on the original (and second generation flat button) British version ended up with a completely different sounding voice saying something close to Zead with the sounding a bit like white noise! Oh how we laughed and got more fun out of that noise alone than actually using it for spelling tests! Everything else about the UK version was the same as the American version including its American accent, which today resembles a cruder version of Professor Stephen Hawkins' speech synthesiser.

Oh man, this brought back some crazy memories. My grandparents still had the one they bought for their kids when I was growing up and I used to play on this thing all the time. When my dad would quiz me on my spelling tests he'd say it in the voice of the Speak and Spell. "That is correct. Now spell *exacerbate* ."

I know this has nothing to do with the actual video but just have to tell you that you have the best intro I've ever come across on KZfaq. It always puts a smile on my face:)

Back then, the most common toy that could talk were dolls. Most of the talking toys used a record type disk to repeat phrases. The Mega Toy talking robot from the 1970s/early 1980s used 8-tracks. Teddy Ruxpin used cassette tapes in the mid 1980s. The other feature of Speak and Spell was its digital display. This was also what made the Little Professor calculator popular, another Texas Instrument release around the same time.

So who makes the new Speak N Spell now? I had one of these when I was a kid in the early 90's. My dad worked at Texas Instruments at the time and he met the guy who did the voice recordings for the Speak N Spell. I also had the math and music ones. But my favorite TI toy was the Voyager. You really need to find one of those on eBay and do a video on it! It was a head set with a microphone, where a guy asks' you questions about different topics in the books that come with it. You could answer "yes," "no," "true," or "false," into the microphone and it would respond. It had all kinds of quizzes and games and stuff. It came with removable cartridges and books on different topics like, space, dinosaurs, prehistoric animals, etc. I still have my old Voyager, but unfortunately it no longer works and I only have one cartridge. I've always wanted to know more about the guy who did the voice recordings for it because he was so funny! My favorite feature was the voice change function. He reminded me of that scene in Mrs. Doubtfire where Robbin Williams is explaining to the social worker what he does as a cartoon voice actor. He'd be like, "Do you want me to change my voice?" Then you respond yes or no for each one. He'd be like, "OK HOW 'BOUT I SOUND LIKE THIS? or h o w ' b o u t i s o u n d l i k e this? or HOW'boutIsoundLIKEthis?" You get what I mean, right? (I'm trying my best to convey in writing, what they guy in the headset sounded like. It was a breakthrough in voice recognition technology at the time. I really with someone would do a KZfaq video about one and I can't believe no one has, yet.

When I first heard the modern version saying "That is right" I immediately remember the original version saying "that is correct"

I loved my speak and spell as a kid in the early 90s. Hearing it talk was mind blowing when most electronics were just beeps and boops.

I think the remake's design shows proper homage to the original. But it for sure ain't identical.

I am italian, and this was called "Grillo Parlante", in italy. It means "Talking Cricket" as a reference to Pinocchio.

THIS DEVICE WAS SO GOOD THAT DEPECHE MODE'S FIRST ALBUM WAS CALLED 'SPEAK AND SPELL' AND OMD USED IT ON THE TRACK 'GENETIC ENGINEERING' FROM THE 'DAZZLE SHIPS' ALBUM ! ! !

Designed, specced, and priced for Gen-X impulse buying.

3:31 it's speaking of words

This means we need a combination of the old visuals and the new sounds. Now i'm just waiting to see that. :)

You are great in every content you provide, I've been watching you since 5 years, I watched all of your keyboards demonstrations, video games cartridges, 8bit music and much more, thank you!

I loved my 80's speak and spell. Probably one of the reasons I'm such a good speller. I agree that it had a magical feeling that it could talk, just like the Sound Blaster in the early 90's.

I mean I remember having one as a kid, sure yeah it was neat at the time but these days it's just not that novel anymore. I *will* say I was blown away during the teardown and seeing almost nothing on the inside, man the tech has come pretty far since then, huh? Now if they'd re-released the big blocky Entex Super Cobra, that one I might pick up!

Somewhere in my house I still have my childhood's Magic Wand Reader. I don't know why but as a child I named mine Simon. "beep boop boop beep! I am your magic wand reader, come read with me". Aww man just typing that gives me a trip.

Now spell ànßwęr

The one aspect I quite like about the original is how it sounds. I love the way the voice sounds like. The new one is just too clear and it loses that charm

"Been on the market for a little bit over a year" "Released in 2019" You really forgot we are almost in 2022. I understand tho.

As a nerd/nostalgia product they should have put at least an emulator of the original voice algorithm into the remake Speak&Spell (if too expensive, at least use samples of the 1980th authentic voice). For musicians those might be interested too, they should have also added the contents/words of all cartridges those existed for the original, and possibly a synth mode that (particularly if speech is emulated) could play with sound parameters to mimic some circuitbent sound tricks of the original.

I wasn't born until the mid-90s, but I think I had one of these. It seemed vaguely familiar in the video thumbnail, so I clicked. I definitely remember that voice!

As a kid I loved my Speak'n Spell. The local version had some interesting tidbits: too bad my parents threw it away when it stopped working. I literall wore it down, I self taught myself to read with one of those. However, I'm fairly sure kids here are just periferic demographic. As you told, the aim of the nostalgia market is getting old people like us getting a Speak'n Spell to our kids, get it refused, played once and then dumped somewhere in their room and reclaim it for our mancave. They did a new "Speak'n Spell" in Italy here too, with the same brand name, but now it's a clone with a far different form factor, colorful and with other games. Back then, it was a repackaged Speak'n Spell with a stylized Jiminy Cricket (enough to avoid Disney suing) near the TI logo, and it was rebranded as the "Grillo Parlante" (the name Jiminy Cricket had in the original Pinocchio tale). It was the 80s version, with Italian language in ROM and Jiminy Cricket plastered on it. Otherwise, it was the very same unit

I remember the original Speak and Spell pretty well - I was 6 years old when it came out and it made learning to spell a lot more fun for a tech savvy kid! Great to see the comparison of the remake of the classic and the original - there are some differences indeed!

While watching this video I realized how much I wanted an original Speak & Spell, so I snuck a peek at that very popular auction site and someone had posted a 1978 Speak & Spell, new in box, for $50 plus $12 shipping. What arrived isn't actually new, but it was in amazingly good shape and included all the paperwork, like it was only played a few times and nobody ever left the batteries in it to corrode. It works marvelously and I didn't know how much joy this silliness would bring me. I've been looking for another 1978 model and I can't find one anywhere - I feel like I got unreasonably lucky. Thank you!

4:00 wait for wolves as in I see four wolves, Or as in this is for wolves? Also I would be terrified of the original if I got it as a kid, it sounds demonic.