Hi bartman,
i'm actually play with those ISD chipcorder.. that's working for sure... it's sounds as bad as a telephone line. Depending what you want to store.. WAV or simple TONES. IF you want to store simple tone... i really suggest you one little pic with an internal PWM module...like PIC12F683. But if you plan to store something like WAV, voices... ISD can be a great choice. I'm really close to finish code example to be post on a other forum. After that i'll try store sound into EEPROM... Cheaper choice, ISD are between 15-30$ each... EEPROM <5$. Using a pic with a/d converter and store value to EEPROM will give something. I remind a previous post on the forum like "Sounds with PIC" or something like that. There's a few link on some already build product and schematic... without the code.


If you want to use ISD chips, you have to know/understand SPI/Microwire communication. In PBP we use SHIFTIN/SHIFTOUT statement. I suggest to try SPI/Microwire before with a simple EEPROM like 93c06 or 93c46, Will be easier to see if you write/read them correctly.

With ISD ChipCorder you'll need 4 i/o pins + 3 for your pushbutton. 7 i/o: PIC16f627 16f628 could be a cheap choice for that project. But by some programming tricks, you can reduce to 2 push button + ChipCorder : 6 i/o.. pic12f629/12f675/12f683/12f508/12f509 will give you enough code space.