dectalk or double talk advice

[Cody Hurst]

Hi Greg,

  Thanks for filling me in on Slackware. I will first look into the
double talk lt. I kind of figured serial would have to be my obvious
choice, however I jsut wanted to make sure. These systems are older (not
ancient) but bottom linie they more than likely have a few serials on
them.

  As far as the software part goes, are there any other alternatives to
speakup, so at least I can have a taste of a few if I should ever need
another one. It is just kind of up to me to I guess you could say "fend
for myself" on this course since the school really doesn't know what is
best for me and never has had a visually impaired person in their
networking course. I wish things woud work out of the box but we know
about that.

Thanks,
Cody

On Fri, 2007-06-22 at 12:47 -0700, Gregory Nowak wrote:
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> First, the operating systems mentioned were suse linux, and
> netware. There was no mention of windows, thus I don't see how the
> reference to jaws fits in, unless it was to explain how jaws gets its
> data, which is besides the point.
> 
> Also, the reference to usb being the better choice was
> inappropriate, since speakup currently doesn't support usb synths, as has
> been mentioned here frequently, especially in recent threads. Having
> said that, if you're going to rely on speakup, you will want to be
> sure that all the work stations you're going to use have at least 1
> rs232 serial port. If they don't, then you're in trouble if you
> expect to use speakup.
> 
> Also, be aware that suse doesn't include speakup in their
> distribution, and I'm not aware of any existing suse kernels with
> speakup patched into them. You mentioned also not being sure about the
> accessibility of slackware. Actually, slackware was the first
> distribution to include a speakup-patched kernel in the official
> slackware media.
> 
> As for which synth to choose, I think the 2 biggest factors in that
> decision are the speech, and the price of each. The doubletalk lt is
> cheaper than the dectalk usb, which does also have a serial port as
> far as I know. As for the speech, I personally prefer that of the
> doubletalk, but that's probably because I've used a doubletalk far
> more than I have used a dectalk, and others may disagree here as
> well. Speech is a very qualitative subject, and there is no synth that
> fits every person's taste perfectly. As an aside, you wouldn't have
> been able to use a doubletalk pc anyway, because they aren't being produced
> anymore, and because it is very hard these days to find a pc with an
> isa slot. Hth.
> 
> Greg
> 
> 
> 
> On Fri, Jun 22, 2007 at 12:23:06AM -0700, Littlefield, tyler wrote:
> > First, you're not going to get speech support without a program.
> > The screen reader puts hooks in the kernel, or catches the video in the case 
> > of jaws, and translates.
> > Next, I'd recommend USB, because, if you start using newer systems, most 
> > don't have a serial port.
> > Third, the accessibility of slackware is fine, unless you insist on running 
> > under gnome, x, or something else, then you're really not getting the 
> > benafit of linux.
> > HTH,
> 
> 
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