Quoted from flooby47:Hi, I have read with interest the comments about the SC01A synthesizer chip. I used to use these in a talking scientific calculator I designed a number of years ago. I was amazed to hear this chip had been used in many diverse devices. I happen to be doing some work with DCC model trains and the possibility of adding speech and sounds cheaply. I found a synthesizer chip from Speakjet which sounds remarkably like the SC01A and currently available at around £28.
The SpeakJet does sound very similar. Back in 2007 there was a project I wrote about and published in SERVO magazine. I used the SpeakJet and a small microcontroller to proxy all the signals and do the appropriate translation since the phonemes aren't the same. Plugged right into the SC-01A socket. At the time there were still SC-01A chips out there so it didn't make sense to shrink it down but I always considered that option since I have smaller surface mount versions of all the parts. You can find the article online here:
https://www.robotworkshop.com/robotweb/wp-content/uploads/servo200712_HERO_Speech_translator.pdf
