The Speak & Spell is a handheld electronic educational toy made by Texas Instruments. It features a speech synthesizer, keyboard, visual display, and ability to play different game cartridges. Introduced in June 1978, it was one of the earliest handheld electronic games available to kids.

The Speak & Spell was created by a team of engineers, led by Paul Breedlove, who began working on the project in 1976. Their first completed version featured Texas Instruments’ Solid State Speech technology to store words similar to how their calculators stored numbers. The toy’s capabilities expanded with additional cartridges featuring a new Solid State library. It was the first educational toy with speech that did not use recorded voices, such as the Chatty Cathy dolls.

Marketed toward kids that were 7 and older, it taught them to pronounce and spell over 200 words. The basic model included the “Mystery Word,” “Secret Code,” and “Letter” games, but did not come with additional cartridges – those were available for separate purchase.

As a part of Texas Instruments’ Learning Center products, the Speak & Spell was released with the Speak & Read and the Speak & Math. This group was joined by the Spelling B, another toy designed to teach children how to spell, and the First Watch, which was created to teach children how to read a digital watch.

The game would be modified throughout the ‘80s, including regional versions in multiple languages. The raised buttons were replaced by a membrane keyboard, it was given updated faceplate graphics, and a compact version removed the visual display. The vacuum fluorescent display was replaced by a liquid crystal display and the keyboard was redesigned to follow the Qwerty board rather than ABC format.

After many years without a redesign, Basic Fun acquired the rights to the Speak & Spell in 2019. This updated version used recorded dialogue, though it was processed to sound synthesized, on-device instructions, a segmented LCD screen, and no longer utilized removable cartridges.