TI Museum

This gallery is something special — a true hidden gem! 💎
Here you’ll find calculators from every corner of the globe, built by a variety of manufacturers… but all powered by the beating heart of Texas Instruments chips! ⚙️❤️

It’s a fascinating mix of global design and TI tech magic — proof that innovation knows no borders.

Enjoy the journey and have tons of fun! 🌍🔢✨

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• Audio Guide

In these galleries, we’ll dive into the wonderful world of educational gadgets, playful toys, and quirky translators that helped write the history of Texas Instruments!

From talking learning aids to brainy games and futuristic language tools, TI wasn’t just about calculators — it was about sparking curiosity, fun, and imagination across generations.

So buckle up, get curious, and enjoy the ride through this retro-tech wonderland!

Have a blast! 🚀📚🧸

 Educational / Toys

The Speak & Spell project was started in 1976 and created the first single-chip LPC speech synthesizer with the TMC0280. The improvements made have led to the production of speech synthesis processors such as the TMS5100, 5200 and 5220 for use in commercial products, such as the TI-99/4A.
The same technology has been used in other toys such as Speak & Read and Speak & Math, Learn, Count and Speak, the Talking Book, and the most famous Jiminy Cricket. In this exhibition you can see some of the rarest ones, from the Buddy (Germany), the Speak & Spell for the Japanese and Spanish markets, up to the 21st century Chinese clone.

 Audio Guide

SPEAK & SPELL

Language Translator. Shortly after the invention of synthesizer technology capable of reproducing human speech with voices stored in ROM (Read-Only Memory - integrated circuits), the Language Translator was launched. This product was renamed Language Tutor in the early 1980s, and both devices were marketed simultaneously. Around the same time, a more affordable version of the Language Tutor, called Language Teacher, was introduced, which lacked a speaker.

Audio Guide

Games or Toys with chip Texas Instruments

In these galleries, we’ll take a trip through time to explore the iconic calculators built by Texas Instruments!
From the legendary LED models that made TI history, to the sleek LCD versions, all the way to the mighty Desktop and the quirky Overhead calculators — there's something for every enthusiast!

Get ready for a dive into glowing red digits, green displays, clicky keys, and designs straight out of the ‘70s, ‘80s, and beyond.

Have fun and… enjoy the nerdy ride! 🔍🧮✨

In this gallery we will talk about Texas Instruments watches. We start with the LED and LCD watches,to those with analog hands, given as gifts to employees or sold as gadgets.There are some booklets, where the functions of the watches are described.

Have fun ! 

Texas-Instruments (TI) revolutionized the digital wristwatch industry with the introduction of the first under $20 LED watch in 1976. Soon, TI produced licensed LED watches that tied in with the release of Star Wars in 1977 for only $16.95, and the price kept dropping. By the end of the decade, industry price cutting had driven several high-end digital watch manufacturers out of business. TI itself suffered from its own success—dropping profit margins forced the company to exit the watch business by 1980. By then, digital watches had become inexpensive commodity items. 

In this gallery, you’ll get lost among a treasure trove of scanned images: old-school ads, quirky announcements, dusty bulletins, and vintage magazines that smell like nostalgia.

Enjoy your trip down memory lane!

Texas Instruments (TI) shook up the digital watch world in 1976 with a real market bombshell — the first LED watch priced under $20! And they didn’t stop there: the following year, they jumped on the Star Wars craze, releasing themed LED watches for just $16.95 — a treat for fans and a blow to the competition. Prices kept falling, and before long, it was a bloodbath: several high-end digital watchmakers were forced to shut down. Ironically, TI itself got crushed by its own success — with profit margins shrinking fast, they bowed out of the watch game by 1980. By then, those once-shiny digital watches had become cheap, everyday gadgets for the masses.