I’ve had the CTS-256 and SPO-256 for decades, and finally got around to making a PCB for them. The ICs came from Radio Shack, back when it was still around and selling such things. Even the 3.12MHz crystal for the SPO-256 came from there as well: once upon a time you could order custom frequency crystals from your local RS.
The exception word EPROM was a lot of fun to create. I think that’s the word I’m looking for… The CTS-256 falls down on some surprisingly common words: answer, fine, minutes, Joshua (!), later, purpose, total, and many more. But the designers of the CTS-256 thought ahead and allowed you to create your own word to allophone rules.
I messed around with one of those RS chips when it a new thing. Never went this far with it. Great job finding all those vintage IC’s and putting it all together!
I’ve had the CTS-256 and SPO-256 for decades, and finally got around to making a PCB for them. The ICs came from Radio Shack, back when it was still around and selling such things. Even the 3.12MHz crystal for the SPO-256 came from there as well: once upon a time you could order custom frequency crystals from your local RS.
The exception word EPROM was a lot of fun to create. I think that’s the word I’m looking for… The CTS-256 falls down on some surprisingly common words: answer, fine, minutes, Joshua (!), later, purpose, total, and many more. But the designers of the CTS-256 thought ahead and allowed you to create your own word to allophone rules.
Neat!
Is it still possible to obtain those ICs?
I messed around with one of those RS chips when it a new thing. Never went this far with it. Great job finding all those vintage IC’s and putting it all together!
This looks awesome!!!!!
I think I sold my collection of those chips on ebay back in the day.
Well done.
I didn’t know they even existed in the 80s