error message, keyboard not working as a result

[Adam Myrow]

It never stopped speaking for me.  I just kept hitting keypad enter over 
and over, and if I timed it right, I could eventually get it to shut up. 
Have you tried turning the Dectalk off and back on at the point it hangs? 
It might be hanging because it's getting overloaded with all the speech 
coming in.  In other words, it could be a handshaking issue.  Lastly, have 
you tried loading the Dectalk module in one of your startup files?  I 
don't know about other distributions of Linux, but Slackware has a file 
called /etc/rc.d/rc.local where you can put in special commands.  Debian, 
IIRC has a file where you can list modules which should be loaded.  Have 
you tried starting Speakup from one of these?