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​Developing the working prototype, with some glitches.

A project log for Speak and Spell - Hell!

Retro 1980's Speak and Spell: hacked to swear

patrick-hickeyPatrick Hickey 06/28/2021 at 23:450 Comments

1. Stripped out main PCB and VFD display

2. Replaced displays with a vintage LED bubble display: 14 segment made by Three-Five Systems. More details on pin-outs etc soon.

3. Built a 8 channel transistor array driver board to control the individual digits. 

4. Added single 5x7 TIL_305 matrix LED display (currently not in use, but designed to show a sprite animation) 

5. Added an Arduino Mega 2560 and Sparkfun "Speakjet" speech synthesizer.

6. Reconnected original speaker. 

7. Connected battery terminals.

To do:
Interface the keyboard and assign a swear word to each letter.

There is some ghosting on the display, a timing issue in code that needs resolved. 

Develop software to spell the words and perhaps implement some level of artificial intelligence.  

I'll try to add a video soon. The bubble LED displays are hard to photograph! 

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