Which hardware synthesizer to buy?

[Kirk Reiser]

On Fri, 10 Apr 2009, Gaijin wrote:

> 	So, which synthesizer works with speakup these days.  It sounds
> like my LiteTalk serial and Mike's Apollo are no longer viable, and the
> DecTalk still requires special software to work.  Which model out there
> still works without a hitch, or which synthesizer is Kirk using?  I
> figure if something crops up with Kirk's synthesizer, I figure it'll be
> the first one to get the "Oops!  Better not do that," treatment.  Anyone
> know which squeaky wheels are getting the grease, or is speakup
> gradually losing it's "from power-up to shutdown" capability with the
> software synth?  I have enough set aside to get another synthesizer, and
> would rather drop the LiteTalk.  Maybe then I can work with the newer
> kernels.  How about it, Kirk?  Which hardware synthesizer do you use?

Well, the fact seems to be that I am using espeakup almost a hundred
percent of the time.  When I do use a hardware synth I have an old
LiteTalk and a serial TripleTalk.  However since William and I got
the espeakup working reliably I use it almost exclusively.

Even with a hardware synth we have nowhere near a power-up to shutdown
solution like we used to have.  From that perspective speakup is a
very sad distant relation to it's earlier self.  If we were to go back
and include that capability we would probably lose the in-roads we've
made into being made available on many distributions and tolerance to
the linux kernel community.

   Kirk
--
Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk at braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061