What's the advantage of a hardware synth?

[Nick G]

Jonathan, it's number 6, really, that being the abbility to install linux 
without eyes.  The current technical limitations have it that way that the 
linux distributions need to be installed with a hardware synth because I 
don't believe Alsa loads on most isolinux instalation media, though correct 
me if I'm wrong.
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jonathan Duddington" <jsd at clara.co.uk>
To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, November 08, 2006 7:41 PM
Subject: What's the advantage of a hardware synth?


> In article <Pine.LNX.4.64.0611081636470.1525 at darkstar.example.net>,
>   randy turner <rturner222 at sbcglobal.net> wrote:
>
>> do they still build any computers with the older isa slots?
>> also has any company built any pci synths that will work in linux?
>> what are the choices that are left for linux??
>
> I'm not visually impaired and I've not used a hardware synth myself,
> but I'm curious.  What is the advantage of a hardware synth over a
> software synth?
>
> I can think of a few possibilities, but I'm curious which are true and
> are important for those who use or prefer hardware synths:
>
> 1.  It doesn't affect the computer's sound system, which can therefore
> play other sounds unaffected by the TTS.  This could probably be
> achieved for a software synth by using two sound cards.
>
> 2.  System startup messages can be spoken before the point when the
> sound system and synth software is initialized and working.  This would
> be overcome by the proposed "Spoken Boot" feature.
>
> 3.  Problems with installing and setting up a software synth.
>
> 4.  Prefer the sound of the hardware synth voice to those currently
> available with software synths.
>
> 5.  Limitations of computer processor power or memory, although I doubt
> this is an issue now.
>
> 6.  The hardware synth offers some feature not available in the
> software synths.
>
>
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