Need help! win32 com_error 'Exception occurred'

[Richard Gordon]

I've got a fatal bug using Parente's pyTTS with Python 2.3 on Windoze 32 
using MS SAPI 5.1 and Hammond's win32 module. The test program is
  import pyTTS
  tts = pyTTS.Create()
  tts.Speak('Hello world.')

The resulting debug trace is:

  PythonWin 2.3.5 (#62, Feb  8 2005, 16:23:02) [MSC v.1200 32 bit (Intel)] 
on win32.
  Portions Copyright 1994-2006 Mark Hammond - see 'Help/About PythonWin' for 
further copyright information.
  Traceback (most recent call last):
    File 
"C:\PROGRA~1\Python23\Lib\site-packages\pythonwin\pywin\framework\scriptutils.py", 
line 307, in RunScript
      debugger.run(codeObject, __main__.__dict__, start_stepping=0)
    File 
"C:\PROGRA~1\Python23\Lib\site-packages\pythonwin\pywin\debugger\__init__.py", 
line 60, in run
      _GetCurrentDebugger().run(cmd, globals,locals, start_stepping)
    File 
"C:\PROGRA~1\Python23\Lib\site-packages\pythonwin\pywin\debugger\debugger.py", 
line 631, in run
      exec cmd in globals, locals
    File "C:\yakitome\test\examples\ex1.py", line 4, in ?
      tts.Speak('Hello world.')
    File "C:\PROGRA~1\Python23\Lib\site-packages\pyTTS\sapi.py", line 213, 
in Speak
      self.speech.Speak(text, flagsum)
    File "C:\Program 
Files\Python23\lib\site-packages\win32com\gen_py\C866CA3A-32F7-11D2-9602-00C04F8EE628x0x5x0.py", 
line 2637, in Speak
      , Flags)
  com_error: (-2147352567, 'Exception occurred.', (0, None, None, None, 
0, -2147201015), None)
  >>>

The system does not have a sound card --- could that be an issue?

My head is about to explode trying to solve this problem, so your help and 
suggestions will be much appreciated.