Some Speakup Observations

[Janitha Rukmal]

On 3/3/2010 3:15 AM, Martin McCormick wrote:
> 	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.
>
>    
Thank you for these tips first of all. I would like to learn more about 
creating and developing Screen Readers for Linux OS in general & also 
for specific distributions. Could you please suggest a good online 
material to start with.

Thanks in advance
T. G. J. Rukmal.