BRUCE CLARK wrote to JAMES BRADLEY, "Voice Reader" on 07-04-05 03:43

 -=> Quoting Mike Ross to James Bradley <=-
 MR> "James Bradley" bravely wrote to "All" (30 Jun
05  20:58:06)

 JB> Someone who is blind wants to participate in Fido. I remember someone
 JB> using a voice synthesizer to read back their mail, that was a simple
 JB> tack-on to BW. I'm sure it was at least Shareware. Can someone recall
 JB> the programs name, or better where to find it?

 BC> Apparently Blue Wave/DOS has a speech-friendly video mode for
 BC> this purpose:

That's what I was thinking about! 

But with the real-protected mode switch it sounds like it is less than
 continual synthesis. The local fellow, I'm SURE preferred the voice
 playback to his Braille dot-matrix like thingie. That too was when
 486's were all the rage.  

I might drag the person enquiring to this echo, but I suspect this
will conclude our combined expertise. ABLED is the echo she first
found me in.

Thanks Bruce!!!

 BC>     on the  speech hardware/software interface in Blue Wave/DOS.
 BC> Although
 BC>     this version  of the  mail reader does provide a speech-friendly
 BC> video
 BC>     mode, it  is extremely  slow.  This is due to the fact that writing
 BC> to
 BC>     the PC-BIOS requires a switch from protected mode to real mode.
 BC> Since
 BC>     PC-BIOS compatible  video writes  can only  be done one character at
 BC> a
 BC>     time, this causes a severe performance penalty.

 BC> Remember that this was written back when 386 & 486 CPUs were about
 BC> as fast as you could get.

 BC> Check:

 BC> Setup/Configure Mail Reader
 BC> Global
 BC> Video Configuration
 BC>  Speech Software Compatible       No  <=-  Change to  Yes

 BC> Press F1 for help on this item.

 BC>                           Speech Software Compatible
 BC>                           --------------------------

 BC>  Many hours have been spent on the speech hardware and software
 BC> capabilities
 BC>  in the reader.  This option is provided for blind and visually impaired
 BC>  users who have voice synthesis hardware and software installed on their
 BC>  system.  This speech software compatibility is achieved by the use of
 BC> direct
 BC>  video writes where spoken words are either unnecessary or undesirable,
 BC> and
 BC>  BIOS video writes where the words need to be spoken.

 BC>  If you do NOT have a voice synthesis system installed, you should NOT
 BC> enable
 BC>  this option.  Certain screen updates, particularly while reading
 BC> messages,
 BC>  will be extremely slow, and the words will not be spoken anyway...

 BC>  You can temporarily enable this option through the use of the /SPEECH
 BC>  command line parameter.  When loading the reader, type:

 BC>      BWAVE /SPEECH

 BC>  at the DOS command line prompt.

 BC>  ** Speech support will NOT work with a SoundBlaster, Gravis UltraSound,
 BC> Pro
 BC>     Audio Spectrum, AdLib, or any other multimedia sound card.  You must
 BC> have
 BC>     specialized voice synthesis hardware and software installed.

 BC>  ** Speech support is not provided in the OS/2 reader.

 BC>  ** Many thanks to Doug Langley for his help in getting speech software
 BC>     compatibility into The Blue Wave Offline Mail Reader.


 BC> If his computer will read onscreen text, it should already have
 BC> the hardware/software needed.



 BC> ___ Blue Wave/386 v2.30
 BC> --- Platinum Xpress/Win/WINServer v3.0pr5a

... It was clearly and simply explained on page 542,839,721 of the docs.
___ MultiMail/Linux v0.46

--- Maximus 3.01