- Speak & Math
The Speak & Math (or Speak & Maths in some countries) was a popular and revolutionary electronic toy created by
Texas Instruments in1980 . Speak & Math was one of a three-part talking educational toy series that also included Speak & Spell andSpeak & Read . The Speak & Math was sold in both theUnited States and inEurope ; it was originally advertised as a tool for helping young children to become better atmathematics . The Speak & Math had a distinct gray with blue and orange color scheme.The unit could utilize either 4 "C" batteries or 6 volt DC power adapter. The display resembled a vacuum fluorescent display, not unlike an LED display. The Speak & Math used a TI
TMS5110 chip for voice synthesis. The Speak & Math, like the earlier Speak & Spell, also had the ability to expand its memory using expansion modules that plugged into a slot near the battery compartment.Speak & Math had five distinct learning games: Solve It, Word Problems, Greater Than/Less Than, Write It, and Number Stumper, all playable at three levels of difficulty. Solve It is the classic math problem-solving game where the participant must solve five math problems to the best of their ability. Number Stumper is a game of
Bulls and Cows , whereby one is told the "number [of digits] right" and the "number in wrong place."External links
* [http://www.99er.net/spkmath.html The Texas Instruments Speak & Math page]
* [http://smithsonianchips.si.edu/texas/ref434.htm The Chip Collection at the Smithsonian - TI Speak & Math]
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