serial conversion with speakup

[Janina Sajka]

Frankly, I would just go with software speech--especially if you have a
decent audio system on that laptop and are able to play other audio
while getting software speech.

To my mind any kind of attachment on a laptop is a nuisance, whether its
a serial cable to an external synth, or a pcmcia card plus the cable and
the hw synth, or a usb cable and synth for that matter. I believe
laptops are more easily used without extra appendages hanging off every
port.

Lorne Webber writes:
> while we're on the topic of conversion into serial, another option that I'm
> thinking about is PCMCIA to serial.
> I too have a laptop that is sadly lacking a serial port, as well as Zack, I
> know at least one other person right off who doesn't have a serial port on
> their laptop. It looks like their going the way of 3 1/2 inch floppy drives
> on laptops, obviously I prefer having a floppy drive, and of course a serial
> port too.
> I'm afraid this is becoming a trend, and the community is going to have to
> adapt to it.
> obviously USB to serial is probably not the answer, but I found a company
> that manufactures PCMCIA to serial, and, I figure, Because they share
> electronic fundamentals with native bus architectures such as PCI and ISA,
> they function exactly like standard COM ports and should be able to be
> addressed as such by most application software.
> (of course that's also what the manufactures say about USB to serial
> converters),
> the address for the particular product I'm interested in is:
> http://www.quatech.com/catalog/rs232_pcmcia.php
> I'm curious what you folks think about this possibility, its drawbacks as
> well as its benefits. one benefit besides the obvious one if it succeeds, is
> that the frequency of a laptop not having both a serial and PCMCIA port is
> virtually unheard of, but again, I could be wrong, and If I am, please tell
> me.
> 
> Thanks.
> Lorne
> 
> 
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> Speakup at braille.uwo.ca
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-- 
	
				Janina Sajka, Chair
				Accessibility Workgroup
				Free Standards Group (FSG)

janina at freestandards.org	Phone: +1 202.494.7040