hardware synth type

[Cody Hurst]

Hello all,

  I'm new to the list and have an issue that I'm sure all of you could
assist with. I'm taking a course next year and for some things I'll
probably need an external synth. For example, I'm not sure if Suse has
some commandline boot perameters for initalizing a serial braille
display using a BrailleNote, so would it be useful to have an external
synth during the install if suse supports it? Also, I'll be mostly
working in the terminal so I'll need to use speakup, but I'm not sure
what the best hardware synth actually is. I've looked some up but boy
are they pricy $300 and up, but who knows if the lists I read were even
up to date, so can anyone give me heads up on what are good, new or
used, price effective, hardware synths are?

Cody