Re: is the synthasizer market dying?

Re: is the synthasizer market dying?

[Thomas Ward]

Hi, in a sense yes. SScreen readers such as Jaws and Window Eyes ship
software synths with their products, and so no one has need of a hardware
synth, or so they believe.

I know of one location that still has the Dectalk products listed. Visit:

www.tvi-web.com

Re: is the synthasizer market dying?

[Charles Crawford]

	What is reallyt interesting about these hardware products that are drying 
up is the money that the government spendws on really silly projects and if 
they only bought up an order of dec express units; life would be very bcool.

-- Charlie Crawford.

is the synthasizer market dying?

[Tyler Spivey]

well, see subject, anyways,
is the synth market dying? i compiled 
a
few facts from what i could gather:
the dectalk line of synths used to be made by dec,
then they transfered to force computers.
that company transfered dectalk to fonix,
and it seems that the hardware line of synths from dectalk has died,
because i can't find anything on hardware dectalks on there website.
dectalks are a good synth, my decpc's worked under dos for years, but
when it comes to linux it just won't do. i believe the double-talk
line is still being developped, i just need to find the time to save up,
but is the double-talk the only synth (for now) that is really being
maintained/developped (new units being made)?
my facts might be wrong, i'm not sure about most of this.
i got most of my impressions off of googling around for a program i'm trying to find,
or write somehow, that uses the dos bios and
transforms dectalk pc responces into serial port output and
input. 

Re: is the synthasizer market dying?

[Buddy Brannan]

Unless something changed without anyone telling me, Artic still makes
the Spirit, as well as their line of notetakers that also work as
external synths. 
-- 
Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,
Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,
Email: davros@ycardz.com  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"
http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio

Re: is the synthasizer market dying?

[Aaron Howell]

Out here in Australia,
things are even worse.
About the only external speech synthesizer you can buy new is the doubletalk lt.
I can't source artic products at all, and there's the FS notetakers but if you have no use for braille then you'd be wasting about au$2500 or so for something you don't need.
There is the tripletalk, but that doesn't seem to be being supported by speakup because of the developer's unwillingness to release useful specs (which will probably see another fine synth go the way of the keynote gold).
Fortunately the doubletalk is and always has been a pretty decent synth, so things aren't as bad as they could be.
Regards
Aaron
On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 08:03:10PM -0400, Buddy Brannan wrote:
> Unless something changed without anyone telling me, Artic still makes
> the Spirit, as well as their line of notetakers that also work as
> external synths. 
> -- 
> Buddy Brannan, KB5ELV/3   | "And if the ground yawned,
> Phone: (814) 455-7333     | I'd step to the side and say,
> Email: davros@ycardz.com  | "Hey ground! I'm nobody's lunch!"
> http://www.ycardz.com/    | --Eddie From Ohio
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup

-- 
     +----------------------------------------------------------+
    /             |\      _,,,---,,_                           /|
   /              /,`.-'`'    -.  ;-;;,_                      / |
  /              |,4-  ) )-,_. ,\ (  `'-'                    /  |
 /             '---''(_/--'  `-'\_)                         /   |
+----------------------------------------------------------+    |
| Aaron Howell                  Kitten Internet            |    |
| aaron@kitten.net.au           Internet consultancy,      |    |
| Phone: +61-417-625550         System administration,     |    |
| fax: +61-7-36010099           system design/integration. |    |
| icq: 6715521                  http://www.kitten.net.au   |    |
|                                                          |    |
|                                                          |    +
|                                                          |   /
|                                                          |  /
|                                                          | /
|                                                          |/
+----------------------------------------------------------+

Re: is the synthasizer market dying?

[Kerry Hoath]

To answer both of your questions in a fashion.
Yes hardware speech is no longer as popular as it once was; with
the advent of software speech and fast processers people have seen less of
a need for another box on their desk to provide speech.
Couple with this the availability of multi-channel soundcards and you can hear
an mp3 and use software speechat t he same time.
this is both good and bad. On the good side we have one less piece
of hardware to look after but on the bad side there are projects like
speakup and emacspeak, and although emacspeak supports
IBM viavoice it is no longer beeing supported under Linux as
far as I know. There are attempts to get eflite working with emacspeak
haven't tried the results myself.

Regarding a program to convert the dos/bios input/output into serial stuff; you could
write one; assembler would be the best language to do it in.
As to communicating with the serial ports; the bios only uses
the polled interface and you'd either want t o find or write some direct
access routines or load a fossil driver.

Regards, Kerry.
On Sat, Sep 07, 2002 at 10:45:44PM +0000, Tyler Spivey wrote:
> well, see subject, anyways,
> is the synth market dying? i compiled 
> a
> few facts from what i could gather:
> the dectalk line of synths used to be made by dec,
> then they transfered to force computers.
> that company transfered dectalk to fonix,
> and it seems that the hardware line of synths from dectalk has died,
> because i can't find anything on hardware dectalks on there website.
> dectalks are a good synth, my decpc's worked under dos for years, but
> when it comes to linux it just won't do. i believe the double-talk
> line is still being developped, i just need to find the time to save up,
> but is the double-talk the only synth (for now) that is really being
> maintained/developped (new units being made)?
> my facts might be wrong, i'm not sure about most of this.
> i got most of my impressions off of googling around for a program i'm trying to find,
> or write somehow, that uses the dos bios and
> transforms dectalk pc responces into serial port output and
> input. 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Speakup mailing list
> Speakup@braille.uwo.ca
> http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
> 
> 

-- 
Kerry Hoath:  kerry@gotss.net kerry@gotss.eu.org or  kerry@gotss.spice.net.au
ICQ: 8226547 msn: kerry@gotss.net Yahoo: kerryhoath@yahoo.com.au