dectalk or double talk advice

[Cody Hurst]

Hi,

  I am really in a bind here. I don't have a synth and will be needing
one for my networking course I'll be taking next year. For this purpose,
I'll need an external synth and don't really know anything about each
dectalk or double talk. I can easily borrow one, but first I'd like to
know which one would be more recommended. First I'll be doing installs
of Suse 9.x or maybe 10.x not sure yet, and netware. I am not sure if I
need special screen reading software that is always built into a kernel
such as speakup for double talk or dectalk to always work. I was just
checking mail and saw someone received their double talk in the mail and
said they'd try an install of slackware. I have no idea how slackware is
with accessibility, but I really need help on a decision before
september and what I should look into borrowing.

  Does this mean that either one of these will work in reading text
allowed even if no special software is installed? I couldn't imagine
this one but maybe I'm wrong.

Which port is more commonly used, serial or USB? I can't use an internal
double talk pc since I'll be moving from station to station most likely
and will want something portable. I have widdled it down to these two,
but please let me know if there are any better alternatives. Basically I
want to be able to take it out of the box, plug it in, and be able to
boot my pc, and have speech be spoke with as little issues as possible
and from what I hear, double talk is probably the way to go on this one.

Thanx,
Cody