🚀 go-pugleaf

Ok, I mentioned earlier a board that does this, here are the particulars :

The company is called RFJ Engineering and their phone number is 
(305) 323-9039, their address is P.O. Box 4166, Sanford, FL, 32772.

They sell a bare board for $24.95 that uses the radio shack (actually
General Instrument) Text-to-speech and speech synthesis chips. This
board has an RS-232C port on one side and an amplifier/speaker on the
other. What ever ascii text goes in one side, comes out the other as
spoken words. It also has a parallel port input which you could connect
to a centronics port (with appropriate connectors of course). After
collecting the parts it took me about an hour to assemble, your mileage
may vary. I suggest that anyone who builds this *not* use the on board
5V regulator, and instead buy a radio shack wall bug power supply that
supplies +5, +x and -y (where X and Y are greater then 3, these drive the
RS-232 chips) and hook it up directly. 

Of course I have no financial interest in anyone mentioned, I built one
I use and it was fairly simple. It cost *a lot* less than $1000. More
like $50 including snacks and beverages.

-- 
--Chuck McManis
uucp: {anywhere}!sun!cmcmanis   BIX: cmcmanis  ARPAnet: cmcmanis@sun.com
These opinions are my own and no one elses, but you knew that didn't you.