thanks for the clarification.

I think part of the reason is to avoid spam. This is a random person who randomly has a Votrax and an Arduino wired up,  not a company with multiple machines working 24/7 to convert text to speech. And it's very hard to find Votrax chips right now.

Very nice, brings back a lot of fond memories of my braille n speak 2000, rest it's easily breakable sole as of early2004. Lol! This is the first ever true votrax experience online. Sure, it isn't the same chip used in the blazy notetakers, but it's close enough. And if you remember type and talk, you're getting that same sound. Since this guy as of 2012 said he had 6 arduino votrax boards, and was giving aaway 4 of them, I contacted him and asked him if he was still giving them away, as I have recently got into the arduino platform myself for some small useful devices. If he is still selling them, we could probably talk about an offer for one. Who knows, that could come in handy for many things. I could finally have a speechboard for arduino. Who knows, maybe I could get a serial port for the arduino and turn it into a serial/usb serial external synth!

I'll have to see if I could connect an arduino to the votalker. If anything, a usb serial port will work as well.

I wish, but it turns out I won't be able to get a board from Alex. He just got back to me and said he'd already put those 4 boards to use for the site already. But don't lose hope just yet! I could probably find a used braille-n-speak somewhere, strip out the votrax chip, then ask for some technical specs for Alex's votrax board, or see if I could make my own. The simplest way would have to be getting the votrax arduino to emulate speechbox mode, the mode Blazy note takers were in for remote synthesis. But considering there's no driver for nvda for that, I could maybe try doing a custom driver, forgetting speechbox emulation altogether.

It would, if we could get usb serial working on that. If I ever were to actually market this speechboard if and when it would come out, considering these would be near impossible to mass-produce, I'm thinking under $50 for sure. Arduino parts are like $5 a piece, and the votrax shouldn't go for much.