Radio Shack's TRS-80 had a voice synthesis box available for $399 way back in 1979:
http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-voice-synthesizer/
Here's a YouTube demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeIJxXCh8P8
($399 in 1979 is equal to about $1399 in 2018)
http://www.trs-80.org/trs-80-voice-synthesizer/
Here's a YouTube demo: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WeIJxXCh8P8
($399 in 1979 is equal to about $1399 in 2018)
http://www.triumphoverchallenges.com/working-at-superior-sof...
Since it was still the very early days of personal computing, it was very ELI5, so still very useful.
It's amazing how little data is needed to generate useable speech. If I ever get some free time, I want to see if I can use their schematic to make it work on RS-232.