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Date:         Sat, 15 Aug 1992 02:00:26 EDT
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From:         Bill McGarry <wtm@sheldev.shel.isc-br.com>
Subject:      Handicap Digest # 2877
X-To:         LHCAP <l-hcap@VM1.NODAK.EDU>

                             THE HANDICAP DIGEST

                                 Issue # 2877

                          Thursday, August 13, 1992

Today's Topics:


                                ******

                           Blink Talk Digest # 688

                           Punctuation and Speech
                          Re: Braille N Speak Compl
                          Re: Windows access maybe
                          Re: Braille N Speak Compl
                                 Jaws Stuff
                             Accent Dictionary.
                          Re: Braille N Speak Compl
                          Re: Windows access maybe
                              Re: Screen Reader
                              Re: Acb/Nfb Feud


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Subject: Punctuation and Speech
From: David.Tanner@f168.n129.z1.fidonet.org (David Tanner)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/168 - Braille Bank BBS, Pittsburgh PA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Yes, the inflection does go away with the Accent when you turn of
punctuation with Jaws.  However, I found that that was not the case
with MultiVoice.  I was also surprised that with the Accent you can
set the pause, but can't define any difference between pause for
end of word, end of sentence and other punctuation.  With the
MultiVoice setup for Jaws you can define one level of pause for end
of sentance and a different one for commas.  Once you get the
settings just right and the speed set the way you want it it really
sounds fantastic.

I had my Accent set up this evening with pause set really high and
the speed set up to 16 to do some scanning of a book and I was
surprised that I actually understood everything very clearly even
at 16 rate.  It was great though because I was not all that
interested in what I was scanning since it was for a friend of my
supervisor's.  I really can't get into basket weaving.  By the time
I hit chapter 8 I was so boared I could hardly stand it even as
fast as I had the speech set.

        D. T.

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Subject: Re: Braille N Speak Compl
From: David.Tanner@f168.n129.z1.fidonet.org (David Tanner)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/168 - Braille Bank BBS, Pittsburgh PA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Well, I think that is where it is going to get interesting to see
how well Type 'N Speak will do.  If I can buy a 386 25 MHZ notebook
with a 40 meg harddisk and 2 meg of RAM for $1,565, one of the new
Echo portables for $129, and TinyTalk for $75. Then the entire
investment is only a couple of hundred more than what I understand
the price will be on the Type 'n Speak.  Of course, you will be
carrying 7 pounds instead of 1 or 2 pounds, and there is still the
idea that if you leave the Type 'N Speak setting around somewhere
no sighted guy is going to take it since they couldn't use it
because it doesn't have a monitor.  In addition the battery life on
a notebook never will get anhy place close to that of the Braille
'N Speak or Type 'N Speak.

On the other hand, I guess I still like my Toshiba 1000 real well,
and I rarely ever even use the old SmallTaLK I have setting up in
the closet collecting dust.  So, guess we will just wait and see.

        D. T.

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Subject: Re: Windows access maybe
From: David.Tanner@f168.n129.z1.fidonet.org (David Tanner)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/168 - Braille Bank BBS, Pittsburgh PA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 >DT> There is just too much access software out there that really
 >DT> doesn't come up to what it is advertised to be by the vendors.
 >DT> If you don't believe it then look at the "new" speech software
 >dT> for the Braille 'N Speak that locks up as soon as you attempt to
 >DT> run an application software with it.  It appears to only work
 >DT> when you are doinng DOS commands. If it won't DT> work with a
 >DT> software as simple as Ralph or Readit then it has to be pretty
 >bad software.
 >
 >Maybe Blazie Engineering isn't quite all it's cracked up to be.
 >Keith Bucher
 >

No, I wouldn't agree with that.  I simply think that the PC Master
software should not have been released until it was ready.  I know
I have been a bit tough on IBM and their Screen Reader, but at
least I am told by those who saw it at the conventions that the
product is very impressive.  On the other hand they are obviously
holding up it's release to make sure most of the bugs are out.

I got a copy of PC Master from Blazie, the only difference between
the copy I got and a registered copy being the absence of the
registered user file, and it worked great as long as I was doing MS
DOS commands; but when I tried to read the PC Master documentation
using Ralph or Readit either one, the program froze and I had to
reboot.  Was I out of memory? No, there was about 520K free before
attempting to run the reader software.

        D. T.

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Subject: Re: Braille N Speak Compl
From: David.Tanner@f168.n129.z1.fidonet.org (David Tanner)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/168 - Braille Bank BBS, Pittsburgh PA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

You know what, I think the big problem is that now that Dean has
added a few more frills to the Braille 'N Speak everybody wants to
compare it to a notebook computer.  Well, they aren't the same, and
were never meant to be the same.  I guess the only thing that
really bothers me is that I wish we had a choice of the 640 or the
BNS classic.  There are far more people who would buy the classic
than will buy the 640 simply because of the price difference.  I
don't most people really are convinced that there needed to be that
much difference in the price from the price of the original model
to the price for the 640.  But then, it seems the more we get the
picker we get, and the more we want for less price.

        D. T.

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Subject: Jaws Stuff
From: Steve.Richards@f101.n277.z1.fidonet.org (Steve Richards)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:277/101 - House Of Pancakes, Morgantown WV


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

In a message 07-31-92 (22:37) From: TANDY WAY To: KELLY FORD
TW>I suspect I am much more demanding and have a wider variety of software that
TW>is in use here. if it works for you fine but experienced speech users find i
TW>is more bother than it is worth. asap does the same thing it is commonly
TW>refered to as artificial intellegence but it falls way short of the mark.

Amen, brother.  I've not tried the Jaws smart screen, but the demo of
ASAP I tried talked my ear off in some programs, but some difficult
light bar menus never got spoken at all.  The artificial intelligence
wasn't too awfully intelligent, it seems.  Doing some configuring might
be more work initially, but afterward what you want spoken gets spoken
and the rest of the garbage gets ignored, so I think it's worth the
little extra effort.  Apparently you do too.
Steve R.

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Subject: Accent Dictionary.
From: Steve.Richards@f101.n277.z1.fidonet.org (Steve Richards)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:277/101 - House Of Pancakes, Morgantown WV


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Hi Don, I decided not to quote your message, but here goes with the
answers.  I copied your address, and since I had already promised a copy
if you were interested in the dictionary I'll mail it to you as soon as
you let me know if a 360K 5.25-inch floppy would be ok.  That's the only
size I have to spare, and few of those, until a newly ordered batch of
disks arrives.  You asked about my phone number.  It is (304) 292-1033
but I only answer this number from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. Eastern time
weekdays, since I'm the only one to man the phone and I spend much of my
time working with my writing career.  Since I must visit the post
office, bank, etc, I can't always be here during those hours either, but
I usually am.

RE your question about writing a program to cause radio station call
letters to be spoken as characters...  Well, it wouldn't be impossible,
but there are problems.  Perhaps the biggest is that most of the
stations in the East have call letter sequences starting with the letter
W, and there's an awful lot of four-letter words that begin with that
letter.  Those starting with K wouldn't be so bad, but C would be as bad
as W, or worse.  There's a simple solution, at least from a programming
standpoint.  Provide an option with all screen readers that
automatically spell any character strings in all caps, but 1: how would
one convince all screen reader producers to do this, and 2: it ain't
really a good idea since normal text might sometimes be written in all
caps for emphasis.  Still, with the option defeatable it isn't a
horrible notion.  An independent program doing this wouldn't be worth
it, in my opinion.  You would necessarily have to preempt the screen
reader's screening of characters written via the BIOS, or worse the data
written directly to the video RAM, or else intercept the character
strings sent from the screen reader to the synthesizer which may have
had their case altered and might contain character sequences specific to
a certain synthesizer.  Anyone going to all that trouble might as well
write a screen reading program.  I'm exaggerating a bit there, but it
would be a fair amount of work, and any program that would slow the
processing of speech output and cause potential conflicts with the
speech software if not written just right...  Well, you get the idea.
Steve R.

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Subject: Re: Braille N Speak Compl
From: Les.Kriegler@f207.n260.z1.fidonet.org (Les Kriegler)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:260/207 - The Recovery Room, Rochester NY


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 DK> hmmmmmm, very interesting.  well for a couple of hundred more, i can get a
 DK> lap top and a braille display from humanware and sounds like probably thats
 DK> the way i'll go. dan

The B.N.S. 640 sells for around $1250.  The disk drive is
another $500.  A braille display alone would will run well in
excess of that, and you have not thrown in the laptop yet.  My
guess is that you will have to spend well in excess of $4000
to get the kind of system to which you referred.  You are not going to
get a laptop and braille display for $200 over the price of
the B.N.S.

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Subject: Re: Windows access maybe
From: Rick.Alfaro@f8.n369.z1.fidonet.org (Rick Alfaro)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:369/8 - The Catwalk BBS, Davie FL


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 GP>      What's indexing? who has it and who doesn't?

Gary,

The way I understand it is that the speech hardware actualy keeps track
of what it has spoken.  software can then take advantage of this idexed
approach by directly addressing or using what was previously spoken.  It
probably goes much further than that as well.  One of the features that
will ues indexing is the "stop on a dime ability when reading through a
document.  If you are reading continuously through a file, and hit one
of th eshutup keys, your cursor will be exactly at the position where
you sent the shutup comand if your hardware and software comnination
suppoort indexing.  Some of the synths that have this that I know of off
hand are the accent, audapter, prose 4000, braille n speak, and believe
it or not, the new battery operated echo by street electronics...

Regards,
Rick

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Subject: Re: Screen Reader
From: David.Tanner@f168.n129.z1.fidonet.org (David Tanner)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/168 - Braille Bank BBS, Pittsburgh PA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

In a message of <03 Aug 92  01:44:50>, Gary Petraccaro (1:2610/12) writes:

 > > > >     What's the word on a Screen Reader demo?
 >

Gary,

In defense of IBM  two problems exist that would make a demo of
Screen Reader for (S2 a bito of a problem.

1. this is also part of the reason I casn see that Slimware Window
Bridge demo would not tell a person much.  Since the demo is
primarily for use with a new operating system that you won't know
how to use a demo with a time limit of say 30 minutes per try isn't
going to give you much time to a. learn to use the operating system
and b. to realistically evaluate the speech software all at the
same time.  This is even more true with Screen Reader since I don't
believe that Screen Reader 2 is designed to actually be used in an
MS DOS environment.  At least with Window Bridge the one software
is suppose to operate in both the MS DOS and Windows environment so
you could learn basic operation of the speech software in a
familiar environment prior to booting up Windows.

2. One of the great advantages of IBM Screen Reader has always been
its' use of a separate keyboard for entry of speech commands.  The
contention is that it keeps down the problem of having keyboard
conflicts between the speech commands and whatever software
application or emulator you may be using.  If IBM did a demo of
Screen Reader you would not have the keypad to use the software
demo with so you would only be experimenting with a portion of the
power of Screen Reader. The separate key pad is an important
feature to be considered when evaluating the Screen Reader software
and one which I didn't think I liked in the beginning, but is one
which I now believe could be a very valuable tool if it were
configured properly for use with the kind of screens we are going
to have to read with OS2 or Windows.

Now, before someone tells me that Screen Reader can be used with
commands from the keyboard instead of the separate keypad I will
say that I know that but that it is far from the preferable way to
use the software and even IBM says it may not work correctly under
terminal emmulation.  I don't fault them for that though as the
same problem exists to one extent or another with virtually every
speech product out there.

        D. T.

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Subject: Re: Acb/Nfb Feud
From: Isaac.Obie@p0.f460.n101.z1.fidonet.org (Isaac Obie)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:101/460.0 - VI/BUG, Holbrook MA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Hi Chris, Yes, I use both a Navigator and Versabraille braille display
units. The Navigator is hooked up to my BBS. The Versabraille is hooked
to my personal computer. I read one line at a time. I cannot read
highlighted stuff though, nor light bars or icons. these macnines are
adequate if you're not a professional programmer. They cost the devil
though. I was lucky to get mine at reduced price through grants and
other wheeling dealing on my part. Yes, the schools for the blind were
not as regulated as they could be. You know, I had one principal who was
so mean, that if he didn't like someone, he'd expell them from school
and no one questioned him! Many of those expelled had the misfortune of
falling in love with his daughter(s). I know this sounds harsh and
unreasonable, but it actually happened. there're tales of people being
slapped for supposedly smart remarks. But, at least that stuff is in the
past now and no one can get away with it any more. I was lucky because I
never fell in love with that man's daughters. I was kind of shy then and
kept my distance. this was before I went to Perkins. People tell me I
oughta write a book on it. but, shoot, I don't want to. Hope I answered
your questions.

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                  End of Issue # 2877 of the Handicap Digest

                                ******
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