Review: Speech Development System For TS2068 (HS68)

Total DISAPPOINTMENT!

This Hardware and Software package lets you digitize your own library of words. But frankly for 39.95$, it is very very expensive…

HERE’S WHY!

The PC Board is uncased! A 9 Volts Battery is stuck right on it! The output cable broke on the 2nd day!!! The microphone is right on the PC Board so you have to shout for clear recording! You have to unplug the ‘EAR’ of the cassette recorder to plug in the output cable of the digitizer unit (that’s why it breaks so soon!). No ON/OFF switch!

That’s just the Hardware! Wait till I tell you about the Software! First the program is recorded only once, and isn’t auto-run! You have to type in ‘LOAD “” : LOAD “” CODE : RUN’. The program is in BASIC. That, I admit, lets you modify the program but we didn’t like how it worked! It is confusing and not very flexible. Some REM statements were put in the program to let you modify it and put it in other programs.

When editing a word, you practically have to guess where it ends and if you make a mistake you have to go back to the Menu, clear the last word entered and go back to the Editing. This is really annoying and takes a lot of practice. Also the editing is quite slow, a small cursor (one pixel at the bottom of the screen) goes from right to left in step of one pixel!

You can playback the recorded work at any speed, that lets you create some special effects. Also the recording quality is good.

It’s really the way its presented that makes it so cheap! (It’s not really cheap at $39.95) It’s so sad to see something like this, it works alright but it’s too expensive for what it has to offer or not to offer (whichever you like best!)

This one is only for people that really, really want to try SPEECH DEVELOPMENT and don’t mind paying too much!

We rate it:

Ease of use: POOR
Documentation: FAIR
Features: POOR
Examples: no examples!
Presentation: VERY POOR
Average: POOR