It shipped without a cartridge, in this configuration called simply the Basic Unit (containing the minigames Mystery Word, Secret Code, and Letter). The toy was originally advertised as a tool for helping children ages 7 and up to learn to spell and pronounce over 200 commonly misspelled words. The Speak & Spell was sold, with regional variations, in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Japan. This series was a subset of TI's Learning Center product group and the Speak & Spell was released simultaneously with the Spelling B (a non-speech product designed to help children learn to spell), and the First Watch (designed to teach children to read digital and analog timepieces). The original Speak & Spell was the first of a three-part talking educational toy series that also included Speak & Read and Speak & Math. The Speak & Spell console The original Speak & Spell
This represented the first time an educational toy utilized speech that was not recorded on tape or phonograph record (as with Mattel's See 'n Say line or the earlier Chatty Cathy dolls). Additional purchased cartridges (called expansion modules) could be inserted through the battery receptacle to provide new solid-state libraries and new games.
The completed proof version of the first console utilized TI's trademarked Solid State Speech technology to store full words in a solid state format similar to the manner in which calculators of the time stored numbers. Development began in 1976 with an initial budget of $25,000, as an outgrowth of TI's research into speech synthesis. The Speak & Spell was created by a small team of engineers led by Paul Breedlove, himself an engineer, with Texas Instruments (TI) during the late 1970s.