BeebEM: An Accessible Emulator For The BBC Micro
So many of you who grew up in the UK (which I did not) may remember the Acorn BBC Micro, an 8-bit computer very similar to the Sinclair ZX Spectrum.Recently I discovered that BeebEM, an emulator for the retro computer, has accessibility features for us blindies.
According to their own website:
BeebEm provides two features for use by visually impaired users:
Screen Reader compatible text view
The screen reader compatible text view can be selected from the view menu. When enabled the text on the BeebEm screen is converted to a standard Windows text edit control. Screen readers such as JAWS can move the edit cursor around the screen and read the text in the control. Note that BeebEm can only convert text when in teletext mode 7. In other modes the text edit will contain the string "Not in text mode." A special key press, ALT + ` (back quote) is available to synchronise the cursor position in the text view with the BBC Micro cursor position.
Text to Speech Generation
The BeebEm text to speech generation can be selected from the sound menu. When enabled BeebEm will use the text to speech capabilities of Windows to read the text on the BeebEm screen. Text convertion is driven using the numeric keypad keys 0 to 9. The key assignments are based on the basic JAWS screen reading keys with some additions. The key assignments are:
PC Key Press
Function
num pad 5
read current character
num pad 6
read next character
num pad 4
read prior character
insert + num pad 5
read current word
insert + num pad 6
read next word
insert + num pad 4
read prior word
insert + num pad 8
read current line
num pad 2
read next line
num pad 8
read prior line
insert + num pad 2
read entire screen (say all)
alt + num pad 5
read current sentence
alt + num pad 2
read next sentence
alt + num pad 8
read prior sentence
num pad 9
move speech cursor to top of screen
insert + num pad 9
speak speech cursor position
num pad 3
move speech cursor to bottom of screen
insert + num pad 3
toggle speaking of punctuation
insert + num pad 1
toggle auto-read of text as it is written to the BBC micro screen
num pad 1
read any buffered auto-read text
If you are running JAWS you may find that it intercepts some of the key presses listed above and stops BeebEm from receiving them. In particular it may intercept num pad 5 presses, so try num pad 7 instead as BeebEm interprets num pad 7 in the same way as 5. The BeebEm key assignments will also work when num lock is switched on so you could try that as well. You may be able to configure JAWS so it does not say the num pad key names.
Under normal use you may find switching on the auto-read function useful (insert + num pad 1). This will read text as it gets written to the BBC micro screen. This works when using the BASIC command prompt and in many of the text based adventure games available for the BBC micro.
As with the text view support the ALT + ` (back quote) key press is available to synchronise the speech cursor position with the BBC Micro cursor position.
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