0.7 Product introduction  (Page 2/3)

• Spelling mode. There were four levels of difficulty which could be chosen. The first level was the easiest and the fourth level the most difficult. The activity would begin by pressing the "Go" key. The Speak N Spell would ask the user to spell a word by one of several phrases such as "Spell cat". The student would have two chances to spell the word "cat" correctly by entering each letter and then pressing the enter key. If wrong the Speak N Spell would say "wrong, try again, cat" the first time. If not spelled correctly after the second try, the Speak N Spell would say "That is incorrect, the correct spelling of 'cat' is 'c', 'a', 't', 'cat' now spell . . .". If spelled correctly, the Speak N Spell would say something like "that is correct, next spell dog". This would continue until a word list of ten words had been introduced to the user. After the ten words were attempted, the Speak N Spell would declare how many the user spelled correctly. There were two keys that the user could use to help in the process. The "Repeat" key would say the word again and the "Replay" key would start over with the first word in the list.
• Say it mode. This mode was added to overcome our fear that the words would not be spoken well enough for the user to understand what word was to be spelled. In this mode each of the ten words the user would later be asked to spell were pronounced one at a time while the correct spelling was displayed. Once the ten words were pronounced with their respective spelling, the spelling mode would begin with the same ten words.
• Secret code mode. This was a simple encryption algorithm of which the user could type in words and have them encrypted by pressing the secret code key. The encrypted word could be decrypted by entering it in again and pressing the secret code key.
• Random letter mode. The purpose of this mode was to allow the user to be a bit creative. When the "random letter" key was pressed, a letter would be displayed. The creativity came with what the user would do with the letter. Perhaps the game would be to identify things in the room starting with that letter, or naming friends and family whose name starts with that letter. It was totally up to the user to determine how to use the letter in their made up game.
• Hangman mode. Everyone knows how to play the hangman game. The Speak N Spell would randomly choose a word from its vocabulary. The user then would enter letters to attempt to identify the word. This had to be done before the fifth incorrect guess.

Pushing the state of the art

Depending on how you look at the success of the product there were either two or three break through ideas in the state of the art. Here is a quick list of them.

• Single chip speech synthesis device. Linear Predictive Coding (LPC) with ten coefficients at an 8kHz sample rate and 1,000 bits per second average data rate.
• 128K memory. The state of the art at that time was 4K bits even though it was at a very slow data rate.
• Talking toys and games. Up to this point calculators were not allowed in the classroom. The concept of a learning aid was brand new to the educational world.