Hi Eric, > > >> it can take say two or three screen readers to equal the >> functionality of one Dos based one. > > Interesting, what makes the DOS ones so user friendly?
A combination of things, ranging from the commercial companies working together, to individuals involved with dos programming themselves making sure that the programs worked, to the simplicity of dos itself. Enhanced Dr dos is still under development for example, and those involved still communicate with individuals blending operating system with speech. Some of those who wrote dos screen readers say worked for IBM which has its own screen reader etc. etc. > >> screen readers for windows >> are in the dictionary for richly problematical. > > In what way? I remember them often being commercial > and pricy. Which is why indeed I was talking more > about Ubuntu, free system with free screenreaders. I am not sure why commercial would make the operating g system work any better or worse with speech. There are both commercial and free dos screen readers, both commercial and free windows ones too. However the degree of graphics, coupled with the stability of the program makes a major difference. No matter how much or how little you pay for the screen reader, it still must work and windows itself has issues. windows has many issues with stability, Microsoft was unwilling to work with the commercial producers of screen readers for the system. that ubinsu is free does not make it functional, again such has nothing to do with the nature of the software, the tasks involved etc. Each Linux distribution has good and bad points depending on the individual users requirements. Part of what may make ubincu look attractive to you is the fact that it makes windows based assumptions as to hardware, but that does not make them work in the way a real screen reader works. > >> screen readers problematic in DOS? > > What I meant is that with multitasking, you can > have one program running, a second collect the > screen contents, a third transforming them into > speech and a fourth sending that to your sound > card or even USB sound device. In DOS, you have > one program running and the screen reader TSR or > driver has to do all other tasks. This means if > you have a nice DOS version of, say, MBROLA or > festival text to speech systems, you cannot use > them "in the background" for your screen reader. That is because text to speech is not a screen reader. It is a tool that can do just that take plain text and make it speech. that a real screen reader does all the translation work is the benefit, not the liability, because it isnot a driver, it is an entire program. A screen reader does more than just read the screen, it monitors and speaks changes in the operating system itself, in content on the screen, speaks your key strokes, and responds to those strokes. You can configure the program to watch for certain tings at certain times, not at others, impact how much or how little is spoken at different times speak everything or nothing as needed. to have one program for each task is less efficient, when writing and writing well one program can do it all. one of the best free examples of this would be asap, there is a windows or was one too. There are many commercial ones, one would be vocal eyes from gw micro. you want the screen reader to be solid and reliable, using many programs for this does not insure consistent performance. You want to know your screen reader will functionally perfectly no matter what program you are running, or what you are doing. Some windows screen readers try to make use of your idea, and involve text to speech as well...which is why they are poor in functionality. I had a friend write me recently to tell me that after 14 computers running windows with speech they were going back to dos, they are using enhanced Dr dos now in fact. > > Instead, you can only use the voice system which > is built into the screen reader already, if any. Again more confusion. A screen reader is the program, the synthesizer is the voice. and since you want your speech to be reliable, you want that voice to be the same. good screen readers support many many different synthesizers, many different types of voices. > > > Never mind that tsrs even for dos programs have been moot since windows > > 3.0, with dos applications, including screen readers employing > > alternatives for task management. > > I agree that with Windows 3.0 you can indeed run > several things more or less at the same time and > I even once had voice input and output software > for Win 3 which came with my Soundblaster AWE32 > but I would not call that DOS voice software then. no, but interestingly one free dos screen reader, tiny talk makes use of that structure in the soundblaster to create a real screen reader. I think where you are confused is in just what a screen reader does. at its best its in the background rendering everything into speech. you do not want to channel that process through many hands, but a as few as possible. the more shaky the operating system or its programs, the more difficulty's it gets to maintain good performance. You end up having to try and for example script each individual function, which is only as solid as the information any company commercial or not gets from the application writers. Lets use the mac for example. In all apple's history there have only been two screen readers for the mac, because they got it correct the first time. Apple worked with those writing the software in the first place to be very very sure things worked in Harmony with the mac operating system. They do the same with voiceoer now, with the problems coming because apple now makes its programs work with windows, losing quality. Windows is commercial, and windows is a mess. you can walk into any apple store, by say the new ipad, and have it talk for you right out of the box, same with an iphone, or a macbook. > As somebody else already said, playing audio on > a CD is something the drive does almost fully > in hardware, so it does not need multitasking. That was why I asked you to define multitasking, you mean having many programs to manage a group of tasks. This is far from a productive use of time or function with speech, and a screen reader. I define it as doing multiple tasks at once, which is how it is defined in corporate activities. I can do multiple things at the same time using one screen reader and losing no productivity while I do them. > > I am impressed to hear that not only ISA sound > cards and serial port devices but even USB voice > synths come with DOS drivers, if I understand > you correctly? Is this only for dedicated voice > hardware or are there also screenreaders which > can output speech via any AC97, HDA or USB sound > card, with "one size fits all" hardware drivers? > I suggest you research this for yourself. I do not use my usb setup for speech so have had no reason to investigate this. I would rather you got a correct answer then a guess. > The problem with ISA is that only computers until > the times of Pentium 3 and AMD K6 routinely came > with ISA slots. I suggest you speak with dell computers about that one. They are the company selling new computers with the slots, so I would address that qualification to them. Newer computers only have ISA if > you use special mainboards, for example industry > and PLC oriented ones. Similar for laptops and of > course for netbooks. Which by the way run FreeDOS > okay: It does not care if the disk is flash and > the display is LED... However, sound and network > will be problematic on a netbook for DOS, wireless > network being the worst as far as DOS drivers are > concerned. A potentially interesting URL about the > driver issue: Perhaps then all the more reason for freedos to get to work. Given the intense dissatisfaction with windows, a dos market could exist if people spent less time talking of problems and more creating solutions. I have never had a problem finding hardware for my needs, desktop or laptop. but I have never, even when dos was more popular wanted to by a computer off the shelf. I pay people to build my machines to my needs, has worked and I anticipate for my needs it will continue to do so. As I am not in the business of meeting the computing needs of others, I cannot speak to their needs. > > www.georgpotthast.de/computer/cindex.htm - has some > older USB driver, AC97 sound driver and the Sioux > web server which also has a number of third party > network drivers linked from the page. > interesting, but with which to do what? see the definition of a real screen reader above. > By the way, I agree that recent Ubuntu versions > have a bad reputation about sound. I think this > started between half a year and two years ago... > > However, this is not because it is Linux. Instead > it is because Ubuntu designers made a bad choice > in making things based on a weak pulseaudio driver > on top of the more stable ALSA driver. So you can > delete the extra layer in theory - in practice, it > takes extra effort to get back simultaneous output > of multiple sounds with DMIX while you got it for > free with pulseaudio. Linux itself again tends to require more than one screen reader to manage all the tasks you can do with a single dos one. for example only one screen reader may work with your web browser, another with your word processor etc. etc. I can maintain my screen reading stability no matter what I am doing, which is best for this type of computing. How ubintu uses sound and how it functions as a screen reader have nothing to do with each other. even individual external synthesizers sound different from one another, some better than others. but the ideal for a screen reader is, can i count it no matter what? in DOS, and for almost the most part in the mac the answer is yes, in windows it is no, in Linux it is such depends. > > > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ > Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval > Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs > proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. > See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. > http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev > _______________________________________________ > Freedos-user mailing list > Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user > > ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Download Intel® Parallel Studio Eval Try the new software tools for yourself. Speed compiling, find bugs proactively, and fine-tune applications for parallel performance. See why Intel Parallel Studio got high marks during beta. http://p.sf.net/sfu/intel-sw-dev _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
