Possible work around to the hardware synthesizer problem

covici at ccs.covici.com covici at ccs.covici.com
Mon Feb 29 10:25:17 EST 2016


Also, orca's read to end or whatever they call it works as well, just to
let you know.

Shawn Kirkpatrick <shawn at shawnk.ca> wrote:

> I assume you're talking about indexing working with speakup and not
> orca? What version of speakup are you using? I don't see how indexing
> could be working since the soft synth driver doesn't seem to send any
> codes that would allow it to work. Unless things have changed pretty
> recently. In that case writing indexing support in to my program
> probably wouldn't be that hard. Of course not all hardware synths will
> do indexing anyway.
> 
> On Mon, 29 Feb 2016, covici at ccs.covici.com wrote:
> 
> > hmmm, I am using  0.8.3 of speech dispatcher  and not seeing any
> > segfaults or any such and indexing works fine -- although my speechd-up
> > was compiled from a source which maybe you don't have, I am not sure
> > where this came from.  I was thinking that the output module for a
> > hardware synth would not be too hard to write and that is why I
> > suggested it.  Your ideais nice, but remember we would want this to work
> > with orca as well as a client, otherwise for those who use both speakup
> > and orca, it would be a mess.
> >
> > I can send you my source for speechd-up, if you would like.
> >
> > Shawn Kirkpatrick <shawn at shawnk.ca> wrote:
> >
> >> I thought of writing a speechdispatcher driver but there were some
> >> problems. When I've tried speechdispatcher with software speech there
> >> were lags and little glitches. I'm not sure if these were being
> >> introduced by speechdispatcher, speechd-up, or some combination of the
> >> two. Also, my version of speechdispatcher has a nasty habbit of
> >> segfaulting, not sure why.
> >> I don't think this would solve the indexing problem anyway, as far as I
> >> know speechd-up uses speakup's software synth driver and that doesn't
> >> support indexing, or has this changed? I also think the less layers
> >> you have between speakup and the synth the better, one program is
> >> probably better than two.
> >> What I'd really like to do, if I ever have the time, is write a speach
> >> daemon to replace this whole mess. Something like speechdispatcher but
> >> with more modularity. There could be modules for output, allowing
> >> hardware and software synth support. Modules for input, for various
> >> forms of input like speechdispatcher compatibility, speakup, fifo, or
> >> anything else that might be needed. Modules for conversion, allowing
> >> things like a word dictionary, number processing, etc. The main goal
> >> of the program would be to get fast, responsive speech from whatever
> >> synth the user chooses to use.
> >> I think this would be a worthwhile project it would just require time
> >> to write.
> >>
> >> On Fri, 26 Feb 2016, covici at ccs.covici.com wrote:
> >>
> >>> Shawn, maybe it might be easier and more universal to write a speech
> >>> dispatcher driver instead?  That way, if you use speechd-up, indexing
> >>> would work.  What do you think?
> >>>
> >>> Shawn Kirkpatrick <shawn at shawnk.ca> wrote:
> >>>
> >>>> I've written a program that will allow hardware synthesizers to be
> >>>> used with speakup even thoe the serial support seems to be currently
> >>>> broken. I wrote this program about a year ago when I thought this
> >>>> problem would be only temporary. Since it seems like the hardware
> >>>> synthesizer support is still broken and isn't going to be fixed
> >>>> anytime soon I thought I'd put it out there in case it can be of some
> >>>> use.
> >>>> The program is called speakupbridge.
> >>>> speakupbridge is a program which makes it possible for speakup to use
> >>>> external serial, parallel, or usb synthesizers. It does this by reading
> >>>> speakup's softsynth device and passing the text to the synthesizer.
> >>>> speakupbridge has the following features:
> >>>> * The ability to communicate with any device that can accept a string
> >>>> of text using a /dev interface.
> >>>> * The ability to define the commands used by the synthesizer in a
> >>>> user-editable configuration file.
> >>>> * Multiple synthesizer definitions in a single configuration file.
> >>>> * Change the pronunciation of words using a dictionary file (a feature
> >>>> speakup
> >>>> really should do itself).
> >>>> * Save and reload speakup settings for each defined synthesizer.
> >>>> For more information or to download the program please visit:
> >>>> http://www.shawnk.ca/speakup
> >>>> I haven't had a lot of time to work on or test this code lately so
> >>>> there's likely to be some rough spots. You'll have to compile the code
> >>>> but that should be easy enough. I've tested this with my serial Artic
> >>>> transport synthesizer and it seems to work. I don't use speakup
> >>>> regularly thoe (too many other missing/bbroken features) so this
> >>>> program really hasn't had any hard testing.
> >>>> This solution isn't perfect, you still won't get kernel messages from
> >>>> boot up but it least it should be possible to use a hardware
> >>>> synthesizer once the system is started and that's probably better than
> >>>> nothing at all.
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
> >>>> Speakup mailing list
> >>>> Speakup at linux-speakup.org
> >>>> http://linux-speakup.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> >>>>
> >>>
> >>> --
> >>> Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
> >>> How do
> >>> you spend it?
> >>>
> >>>         John Covici
> >>>         covici at ccs.covici.com
> >>>
> >>
> >
> > -- 
> > Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
> > How do
> > you spend it?
> >
> >         John Covici
> >         covici at ccs.covici.com
> >
> 

-- 
Your life is like a penny.  You're going to lose it.  The question is:
How do
you spend it?

         John Covici
         covici at ccs.covici.com


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