Trying to get a Dell Enspiron Laptop to Talk

[Martin McCormick]

	Thanks to everyone. I'll get the latest grml this
weekend and have a go at that, first.

	There are a lot of systems around that would probably
talk and give good text console service that won't quite run
orca and all the resources it needs either because of the speed of the CPU
or amount of available ram. As one who is still using what
amounts to a talking serial terminal to connect to a TTY on a
Unix system for many applications, I am excited about the
talking distributions out there but the resource requirements to
get orca and speech running are pretty rigorous. I never
thought I see or, in this case, not hear the day when 256 megs
and a 1 GHZ processor wouldn't even boot the live CD, but all I
have to do is try the ubuntu live CD on such a system and it
starts, you hear the drums so it almost boots and then about ten
minutes later, you realize that there is trouble in paradise.

	My wife reports the screen is mostly blank with random
bits of light and color but that's it.

	It's too bad you can't do a talking ubunto install
without orca.

	I think software synthesis is the only way to go but it
must be able  to run as if it was a hardware synthesizer which
means no spelling because of interrupt service routines, etc.

	Part of my talking terminal is a screen reader I wrote
in 8086 assembler and I can absolutely swear as to how vexing
interrupt service routines can get because unless you have
parallel hardware, nothing ever really happens simultaneously
except for outside interrupts and then you must prioritize which
one you don't do now.

	The only way software speech can work right is for the
CPU that is doing the sound to not be the CPU that is handling
everything else. That is essentially hardware speech but using
the built-in sound hardware.


Martin McCormick