Bugs in DEC-Talk Express driver

[Tony Baechler]

Kirk Reiser wrote:
> As of this evening the Dectalk Express driver in speakup appears to be
> working.  That is it seems to find the synth at start-up okay.  I have
> removed the [:pe -389] command to shorten the period pause so if
> you're not happy all gang up on Tony! 'grin'
>
>   
This was definitely a bug in the driver.  It wasn't my fault! <grin>  
Seriously, the period pause is clearly documented in the manual and I 
really don't know why someone would put that in the init string unless 
it was their personal preference.  It's not too bad for slower speeds, 
but if you get the rate cranked up, it sounds choppy and drives me 
nuts.  The default pitch should be set at 100 but that is easily fixed 
in a script.

> As for the numbers in the midst of words problem don't hold your
> breath.  I don't have an Express and without one to beat on myself
> there's probably no chance of fixing that one.  Part of the problem is
> the stupid synth doesn't handle mixed words well itself.
>   

I found a partial fix but it has drawbacks.  You can do [:mode math on ] 
and that solves that problem but it interprets punctuation as math 
symbols.  I carefully checked the init string and I don't know why that 
would happen.  It's random and it doesn't always happen immediately on 
init.  I'm still looking into a fix for that.

> p.s. This is speakup in git with linux v-2.6.24+ that the driver is fixed for.
>   


Ah, no wonder why cvs was giving me old software.  I saw no checkout 
script and I know nothing about git.  I think I'm still stuck on a 
2.6.23 kernel so I don't know when I'll get to test.  Thanks very much 
for the fixes.  It's much appreciated!