From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu ([144.92.166.194]) by speech.braille.uwo.ca with esmtp (Exim 3.36 #1 (Debian)) id 1GeaG5-0004wX-00 for ; Mon, 30 Oct 2006 11:45:09 -0500 Received: from localhost (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 74C2C74192 for ; Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:44:35 -0600 (CST) Received: from mta1.math.wisc.edu ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (mta1 [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id 11857-09 for ; Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:44:33 -0600 (CST) Received: from ulam.math.wisc.edu (ulam.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.245]) by mta1.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 3BF717418D for ; Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:44:33 -0600 (CST) Received: from vv507j (vv507j.math.wisc.edu [144.92.166.75]) (using TLSv1 with cipher RC4-MD5 (128/128 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by ulam.math.wisc.edu (Postfix) with ESMTP id 37CD52BDA3 for ; Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:44:33 -0600 (CST) Message-ID: <05c401c6fc42$ad3d61c0$4ba65c90@vv507j> From: "John Heim" To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." References: Subject: external synthrecommendation? Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 10:44:33 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1"; reply-type=original Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Priority: 3 X-MSMail-Priority: Normal X-Mailer: Microsoft Outlook Express 6.00.2900.2869 X-MimeOLE: Produced By Microsoft MimeOLE V6.00.2900.2962 X-UWMath-MailScanner: amavisd-new at math.wisc.edu X-BeenThere: speakup@braille.uwo.ca X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.9 Precedence: list Reply-To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Id: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2006 16:45:09 -0000 I bought an external doubletalk a year ago in April. So it's only a year and a half old and it appears to hav died. I first started having trouble with it when it was still less than a year old. I kind of wish I had sent it back when it first started acting up. I have 2 questions: 1. Is my experience with the doubletalk LT typical? How long do they usually last? For $350, I'd expect to get more than a year and a half out of it. 2. Any recommendations for an external synth? Obviously, I want to spend as little as possible but I'll spend whatever I have to to get a good synth. PS: The symptoms are as follows: I turn the doubletalk on, it says "doubletalk ready". But it does not speak when used with a machine running speakup. I have a tripletalk external synth at workso I know speakup is working. When I initialize the doubletalk, I often get kernel error messages. But I don't think that's particularly meaningful. Probably the ltlk driver just doesn't know how to handle it whenit detects a synth but the synth doesn't respond properly.