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SmartTALK - 2 Serial/1 Parallel/Speech Synthesizer

S.M. VIDEO · Audio and Speech
Platform, category and status for this entry were derived automatically from the source list and have not yet been checked by hand.
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Catalogue IDHW-0411
ManufacturerS.M. VIDEO
Person or teamShon McCallum & Minh Ta
TypeAudio and Speech (Audio)
Connects viaExternal Expansion Bus
PlatformADAM
StatusReleased
SourceCollectors DB v1.00 Master

Notes

One unit combining two serial ports, a parallel port and a speech synthesiser - an unusual grouping, and a sensible one on a machine with very few slots.

Why combine them

  • The ADAM has few expansion positions, so every card that does more than one job frees one.
  • Two serial and one parallel is the standard set - a modem, a terminal and a printer. The speech synthesiser is the addition.

On speech

  • In the 1980s speech needed dedicated hardware; no machine of this class could generate it in software.
  • They sold for accessibility, for education, and for the novelty of a computer that talked - roughly in that order of seriousness.