I had an RS-232 Votrax and also the Heathkit EE-3403 Speech Synthesis course for the ET-3400 Microprocessor Trainer, which came with an SC-01 chip as one of the parts if I recall correctly. Both long ago faded away through downsizing here sadly.
I do still have the test-to-speech input file from 1988 that was used to have the Votrax sing the 12-days-of-Christmas at the company holiday party that year, and the HP 3000 utility to feed it out a serial port. On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 8:37 AM Tony Aiuto via cctalk <cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > On Wed, Dec 2, 2020 at 7:05 AM Jules Richardson via cctalk < > cctalk@classiccmp.org> wrote: > > > On 12/1/20 7:28 PM, Tony Aiuto via cctalk wrote: > > > Oh.. That brings back memories. We had a Votrax with a serial interface > > in > > > the computer room. > > > I configured it as a printer so I could yell into the room.. > > > > > > echo Hey Alan. Look at the console and change the tape to the one > > requested > > > | lpr -Pvotrax > > > > That's actually... useful. I've never really known what people did with > > them, beyond the occasional little bit of amusement. > > > > There was certainly amusement too. We would hide the box in one of the > cabinets > and have it play things to noob users who were in the room alone. > > I've got a serial-interfaced one based around an RCA 1802 which I last had > > hooked up to an Apple II a few years ago, but it's one of those "cool to > > have" things rather than really serving any purpose. > >
