USB TO SERIAL CABLE QUERY

USB TO SERIAL CABLE QUERY

[David Harvey]

Hello,

I just recently purchased a USB to serial cable, since my PC doesn't have a 
serial port and I have an old DecTalk Express.

I'm trying to get speakup working on a Knoppix CD.  I hear the sound 
"Initialising startup sequence" through my soundcard, but I'm not sure 
what's on the screen from their on.

I press alt f2 to open a consul, type
knoppix speakup_synth=dectlk
but nothing happens.

Also off topic here I'm also trying to get it going using JFW.  I select 
DecTalk Express in the list of synths to use and configure, but when I go to 
select it, I hear a ding and speech via the soundcard stops.

What can I do to fix the above problems?

Thanks

David Harvey 

Re: USB TO SERIAL CABLE QUERY

[Luke Yelavich]

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On Thu, Mar 09, 2006 at 07:20:35PM EST, David Harvey wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I just recently purchased a USB to serial cable, since my PC doesn't have a 
> serial port and I have an old DecTalk Express.
> 
> I'm trying to get speakup working on a Knoppix CD.  I hear the sound 
> "Initialising startup sequence" through my soundcard, but I'm not sure 
> what's on the screen from their on.
> 
> I press alt f2 to open a consul, type
> knoppix speakup_synth=dectlk
> but nothing happens.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to use a DECtalk express, or any other 
serial synth with a serial to USB cable, as Speakup talks directly to 
the serial ports in the computer to access the synth. This is so that 
the synth can start speaking as soon as the kernel loads.

Your only option I am affraid is software speech.
- -- 
Luke Yelavich
GPG key: 0xD06320CE 
	 (http://www.themuso.com/themuso-gpg-key.txt)
Email & MSN: themuso@themuso.com
ICQ: 18444344
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Re: USB TO SERIAL CABLE QUERY

[Kirk Reiser]

As far as I know there is nothing you can do with your current
set-up.  Using a usb to serial converter won't work because speakup
talks directly to the serial hardware rather than going through other
system calls.  Because of that the usb converter cannot provide
hardware ports in the same range as the standard serial uarts so
speakup cannot talk through the converter.  Your options are to either
use a computer with standard serial ports or use a softsynth device
with one of the available software synthesizers.  This softsynth
approach is not a simple solution for the newbie particularly with the
knoppix disk.  You could use the grml disk and get it running fairly
straight forward.

  Kirk

-- 

Kirk Reiser				The Computer Braille Facility
e-mail: kirk@braille.uwo.ca		University of Western Ontario
phone: (519) 661-3061