I presume Parallax stopped building the EMIC2 board through lack of demand. The components seem to be still available and relatively cheap (about $12 on Mouser for each of the two large chips). The project page includes all the pcb details but I don't see source or even binary.
A quick test of the github code uses about 8% CPU on a Pi 4 so should be within range of a Pi 0. The Pi 0 has no audio out and USB is probably the cheapest way to do it. The built-in (PWM) audio on the Pi4 is dreadfully noisy so no real loss and alternative audio modules relatively expensive. You'd soon get to the $55 of the mikroe. Might be in range of an ESP32, though the big advantage of a Pi is the extraordinarily good range of support - all the facilities of Linux without having to write even a monitor. On Wed, Sep 17, 2025 at 7:07 PM Paul Koning via cctalk < [email protected]> wrote: > > > > On Sep 17, 2025, at 11:21 AM, Anders Nelson via cctalk < > [email protected]> wrote: > > > > Epson still makes a DECTalk chip, basically DECTalk code on an Epson MCU > > with a serial interface: S1V30120. > > > > https://www.mikroe.com/text-to-speech-click > > That's rather expensive. It's also curious that German and French are not > supported, though they are included in the version on Github. > > paul
