As it turns out, my uncle, Ralph Dosher, was the executive in charge of green-lighting the Speak-n-Spell. Before he died, I had the pleasure of talking with him

As it turns out, my uncle, Ralph Dosher, was the executive in charge of green-lighting the Speak-n-Spell. Before he died, I had the pleasure of talking with him about the Speak 'n Spell and TI LOGO as he was preparing a memoir of his 50+ years at GSI/TI. According to my uncle's notes, this story is mostly true, but misses some of the nuances. First, you have to remember that corporate culture in TI in the mid-70s was not at all like what is common in Sili Valley today. TI in the mid-70s was considerably more "locked down" than modern, small, nimble companies. To say that management saw little value in it is not exactly correct. It's probably more fair to say they weren't ready to even think about new ideas. I would not be surprised to learn that TI at the time made year-long plans on January 2nd and didn't stop to think about new ideas until December 30th. But there was definitely interest in educational devices among TI execs. I know my mother (an Educational Psychologist) frequently talked with my uncle (Exec in charge of Educational Initiatives) about such a project for several years before the release of the Speak-n-Spell after extended contact with Seymour Papert, Cynthia Solomon and Logo. What is true is TI wasn't sure what product they should make and Breedlove, et al. did rather gobsmack TI management when it was presented to them. (The story I heard was the concept was nearly fully developed when presented.) The problem was that their immediate management, who were busy building calculators, did not know how the SnS fit into the calculator line. The story my uncle recounted was there was a process in place to make sure good ideas made it to management; but it did take a while. Either Breedlove or Wiggens supposedly pulled a corporate social faux pas by trying to leap-frog over the established process. To our modern silicon valley sensitivities, this would be an obvious thing to do: if you find you're blocked, you just go around the blockage. But TI in the mid-70s was still culturally staid. Complicating matters further, the engineering team was in Lubbock and the execs they needed to talk to were in Dallas. A better way of putting this is Breedlove, et al. were way ahead of their immediate management in Lubbock and it took a while for them to figure out who in Dallas they needed to talk to. Saying exec management didn't think it should be produced is a bit simplistic.