results of test with JAWS for DOS and /dev/synth

[Gregory Nowak]

I thought that in order to use an internal synth in dosemu directly via it's native drivers, you had to have a none-speakup kernel.
Greg


On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 07:19:16PM -0600, Adam Myrow wrote:
> Here is my promised follow-up to my tests of using /dev/synth as a com
> port under DOSemu.  I installed JAWS for DOS on my simulated C: drive in
> DOSemu, using Speakup to read the screen.  I had to use review most of the
> time, and the arrow keys didn't speak selections quite right, but I was
> able to work through it.  Anyhow, I selected the Accent SA and told JAWS
> to use com1.  I then killed Speakup and restarted DOSemu with the "-k"
> flag, and JAWS for DOS came right up and reset the Accent to default
> values for speed, rate, etc.  I went into Jaws, and adjusted the settings
> as best I could, but couldn't quite match what I use in Speakup.  Then, I
> started playing with various applications and discovered that JAWS behaves
> much like Tinytalk.  That is, it occasionally acted as if words were
> broken between two lines, but otherwise talked.  However, it has its own
> problems working under DOSemu.  For instance, it sometimes doesn't speak
> the first character of the line, and it seems to have a horrible time
> tracking the PC cursor.  So, I don't recommend it unless you can tweak it
> and get better performance.  I would be greatly interested in how
> Vocal-Eyes and ASAP handle in DOSemu.
> 
> Another option besides using the /dev/synth device is to try to load
> native drivers for the synth if its internal.  For instance, I was able to
> get the Dectalk PC drivers to load, but this required some modifications
> to /etc/dosemu.conf, involving telling it to pass the base address of the
> Dectalk directly to DOSemu.  JAWS for DOS behaved quite similarly using
> the Dectalk drivers, so I suspect its problems are more with DOSemu than
> /dev/synth.
> 
> I wish I had better news regarding JAWS for DOS, but here you are.  I will
> probably continue to experiment since I can still boot into Windows and
> use DOS mode for those applications that need it.  I started experimenting
> with this because I eventually plan on upgrading my computer and this will
> likely involve a shift to Windows XP, which to my knowledge, does not
> support DOS screen readers.  So, I am trying to find a workable
> alternative.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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