Speak n spell introduction

Introduction

I was out shopping with my family during the Christmas season of 1978 on a Saturday morning in Lubbock, Texas. As you would expect in a west Texas town like Lubbock, it was the local Wal-Mart in the mall, or near the mall. Anyway, my habit was to grab our two daughters and head for the toy department to see what new toys were available for Christmas. This habit became a great opportunity over the years to build a strong bond with the girls in an area we had in common – toys. But this particular Saturday was a bit different than most. As we approached the toy department, I noticed a crowd of children around a display cabinet. Obviously there was something of interest in that display and I needed to see what it was. I seem to remember that my two daughters were also curious, but they were not my primary focus at that point. Just as every other kid in the store I was drawn in to see what was capturing the attention of all of the other kids our age. This is where being a fully grown kid has its advantages. I was easily a head and shoulder taller than any of the others and could see over the crowd to determine what was attracting us. To my surprise, it was the Speak N Spell™ learning aid that Texas Instruments (TI) had just introduced to the market. Children were pushing and shoving each other in order to get close enough to play with the demonstration unit. Neither my daughters or I would stoop to that level, attempting to push our way in – we already had two of them at home.

This was the first time in my young career where the reward for the work I had done was not financial but of much greater value. That is, the reward of seeing a crowd of children fighting over a product I had a major part in developing. In fact, that feeling of reward far exceeded any financial reward I could have received for having developed the Speak N Spell. That is not to say that I was not open to the financial reward even though it could have never rivaled what I felt at that moment. What is even better is that experience in Wal-Mart was not the only episode I had like it. There were many other times I found crowds of children around a display case in a store with the same results.

The technology environment

The mid 1970s was an interesting time for technology. We were in the middle of discovering what could be done with integrated circuits (ICs). The IC had only been in existence less than 20 years. The concepts of the microprocessor, or microcomputer were brand new. The work horse of technology was the product family known as Transistor, Transistor Logic (TTL) also known as 7400 logic.

At TI, the TMS1000 four bit microcontroller was being used everywhere possible. The new exciting business opportunity was the calculator. The concept of the calculator had been invented by Jack Kilby in 1965 (1) in an attempt to prove the IC had value. You should remember that Jack had also been the inventor of the IC. The calculator made TI a household name. Even today people have little clue of what TI does beyond selling calculators. This was the case in the mid 1970s as it is today, TI is still known for their calculators; however, they are now less than 5% of the company.