Some Speakup Observations

[Martin McCormick]

	I started using the vinux distribution of Linux right
around the first of the year and really like it. I work as a
systems engineer for Oklahoma State University and so end up
doing a lot of strange things to computers as I try to get them
to behave as we want them to. One of the things I had had a
little trouble with under speakup was accessing serial devices
at 9600 baud or lower because the speech under speakup sounded
strange to put it mildly. I did a test one day in which I set
the serial line speed to 600 baud between the Linux computer and
another Linux computer I was using for tests. The speech turned
in to spelling which confirmed what I suspected was the trouble.

	As one who wrote a screen reader which I used under DOS
for many years, I knew that there should be a rather short delay
in which incoming data are accumulated without trying to speak
them. Too much delay and the screen reader sounds sluggish. Too
little and it thinks each character should be handled as a
single character.

	After reading the speakup documentation, I set the
trigger-time delay to 100 milliseconds and this made a great
difference. Setting it to 200 milliseconds makes the 9600-baud
connection sound quite normal. This is almost 1/4 of a second,
however, so you probably will want to set it back to 10
for normal operation as it starts to get a bit sluggish.

	I am so glad speakup gives access to these parameters as
this is a prime example of how one set of parameters does not
fit all situations.

	The screen reader I wrote for my own use was written in
8086 assembler. It did a pretty decent job driving an Echo
synthesizer but it was time to modernize. The Vinux distribution
has given new life to several computers which are not quite up
to running the ubuntu Live CD and Orca. I don't like to see
still usable equipment go to waste so Vinux has really filled a
nitch.

Martin McCormick WB5AGZ  Stillwater, OK 
Systems Engineer
OSU Information Technology Department Telecommunications Services Group