Texas Instruments Le Livre Magique

Nothing else than a Touch & Tell with French voices stored in the Speech-ROM.

The pictured Le Livre Magique was manufactured already in 1983 and makes use of a simple approach: The printed circuit board (PCB) is identical with the Touch & Tell introduced one year earlier but lacks the Speech-ROM. Instead of it the Expansion Port of the toy is populated with a small, white module.

This module looks like the well known Expansion-ROM's of the original Touch & Tell. 

Removing the cover of the module reveals with the TMC0350 (CD62171) the well known Voice Synthesis Memory (VSM) family introduced with the first version of the Speak & Spell. The "Custom Design 62171" holds obviously the French voice of the Le Livre Magique.

Later models of the Le Livre Magique include the same Speech-ROM on the main printed circuit board (PCB).

The next evolution steps are the more advanced Le Super Livre Magique and the La Lecture Magique introducing two position sensitive keyboards in a foldable housing to accept small booklets.

Texas Instruments stopped the development of this educational line in 1993 with the cute Le Petit Ours Magique.

If you have additions to the above article please email: joerg@datamath.org.

© Joerg Woerner, January 30, 2005. No reprints without written permission.