Invendiscovry

  Two of my SP0264-021s next to my SP0256A-AL2 A year or so back, I was wanting to see how I could add voices to my Arduino projects. After some research, I came across the SP0256 series of speech synthesis chips. I decided I needed to get my hands on the SP0256A-AL2 variant, which could produce any word via a set of allophones .   The SP0264 is a chip in the same series, apparently slightly newer. It's pin for pin compatible with the SP0256, so when I saw some with the number "SP0264-021" on eBay, I thought "The number on it is slightly different, but the datasheet says "Natural Speech", so it must be the same, right?". Wrong. After buying one, then two more after I thought I'd blown the first one, I hadn't been able to get any more than noise, static that at times almost sounded like something but definitely wasn't what it was supposed to be. Frustrated and disappointed, I gave up and stuck them in a drawer somewhere. Later, I got

So a week or so ago, I was watching a video and the person mentioned how dried out moss will "ressurect" when it gets water again, even after a long time being dead.   A few days ago, I found some bits of bone dry moss that had been stored in the hot, dry trunk of our old school bus for at least a few years. So, I decided to see if it was true!   Much to my own surprise, they revived within a minute of being dunked in a bowl of water, and are still sitting happily where I left them on the board I did the experiment on. Maybe sometime if I find a small glass globe, I'll put them in there and start some sort of self-sustaining ecosystem...