Dectalk isa model

[Gene Collins]

Hi adam and all.  You shouldn't have to load the windows stuff first. 
Have you tried the dec_pc.tgz file in the linux-speakup.org goodies
directory?  Remember that since the dectalk pc needs drivers to be
loaded on to the card before it can be used, you can't get the dectalk
pc to talk from boot up.  This means that it would be dificult to use
the dectalk pc for installing a linux distribution.  You can only get it
to work after the file system has been mounted and checked, so that the
drivers can be loaded on the card before you load the speakup_decpc
module.  And yes, the dectalk pc driver must be compiled as a module.

What I do is to specify "none" as the speakup default keyword when I
compile the kernel.  This means that the kernel boots without speech.  I
put a control-g in my /etc/issue file, so that I get a beep when the
machine is at the login prompt.  I then log in as root and run my decpc
script, which loads the drivers on to the card, and then loads the
speakup dectalk pc module.  Finally, I have my script initialize the
rate, and punctuation levels, etc.  Here is my decpc script, for those
who might be interested.

#!/bin/bash
# flush the disk buffers, just in case anything goes wrong.
sync;sync;sync
# make sure no other synth is in use.
echo none >/proc/speakup/synth_name
# wait for two seconds.
sleep 2
# load the drivers on to the dec pc card.
dtload
sleep 2
# echo the decpc keyword to /proc/speakup/synth_name, which causes
# the speakup_decpc module to be loaded.
# you could use modprobe speakup_decpc instead, if Speakup is built
# completely as modules.
echo decpc >/proc/speakup/synth_name
sleep 2
# set punctuation level to 3
echo 3 >/proc/speakup/punc_level
# set reading punctuation level to 3
echo 3 >/proc/speakup/reading_punc
# set pitch to 80.
echo 80 >/proc/speakup/pitch
# set rate to 1, most people will not want this.
echo 1 >/proc/speakup/rate
# last line

Cut and paste the above script in to a file.  Name the file whatever you
like, I called mine decpc.  Put the script in /usr/bin or somewhere in
your path.  Make it executable with chmod 755 decpc.  After you've
followed the instructions in the kernel configuration, you should now be
able to type decpc after you log in as root, and the dectalk should come
up talking.

Gene