Then it will need to be 21 I/O ports. No sacrifice of LED, but now I will need to find out the size of something appropriate. We're so far dealing with 2 fairly large chips even if they are surface mount.

There will be two boards for sure as the finished project need only do play-back and not recording. I'd want to pop it into the recordering circuit then solder it onto the playback board. This board will only be about 1x2 inches. On the front there will be 1 LED, on the top there will be 9 LEDs and the three switches and on the bottom must go the PIC and sound chip. The speaker squeezes in somewhere under that and the battery to the back of it. Any resistors and capactitors will also need to be surface mount, but I don't think they will take up much room.

So, while I understand the basic concept of the sound chip the program itself will be fairly complex as everything interacts with the LEDs and the switches. Once I know what components to use and know they will fit in the size department I can take the time to make a flow chart of sorts so I don't get any more confused than what I need to be.

Microwire currently has no meaning to me so I don't know how scared I should be of it.

Did you look at the site I posted with the DIP switch addressing unit? How did they make it work? I know from reading the 2000 series manual that it has five address pins, but depending on how many different sound bytes you can use anywhere from 2 to 5 of those pins. I need five sounds so 3 pins plus the play trigger still gives 4 total for the PIC to deal with. I just can't help but think the 4000 seires is overkill, but maybe in the long run it is easier to deal with.

Thanks,

Bart