As a legally blind person who started elementary school in the mid 1980s, the speech synthesizer that I associate most strongly with that time period is the Echo, installed in an Apple IIe. Here&#x27;s a video demonstrating the Echo with an Apple II+:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=sbZuBhT7HK4" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=sbZuBhT7HK4</a><p>The MESS emulator can emulate the Echo, as well as the Apple IIe itself. I spent some time playing with that configuration on my PC, for a bit of nostalgia.<p>I was shocked to learn years later that in the 1980s, the state of the art in speech synthesis was actually DECtalk:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.festvox.org&#x2F;history&#x2F;klatt&#x2F;part35.au" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.festvox.org&#x2F;history&#x2F;klatt&#x2F;part35.au</a><p>But DECtalk was probably too expensive for a public school system at that time.<p>By the way, that clip comes from a record produced in 1986 by Dennis Klatt, the late creator of DECtalk. It&#x27;s a fascinating chronicle of the history of speech synthesis:<p><a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.festvox.org&#x2F;history&#x2F;klatt.html" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.festvox.org&#x2F;history&#x2F;klatt.html</a>