From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: from mail-qa0-f42.google.com (mail-qa0-f42.google.com [209.85.216.42]) by speech.braille.uwo.ca (Postfix) with ESMTP id 50BAFC1A113 for ; Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:47:32 -0400 (EDT) Received: by qafi31 with SMTP id i31so1230629qaf.8 for ; Mon, 23 Jul 2012 06:47:32 -0700 (PDT) DKIM-Signature: v=1; a=rsa-sha256; c=relaxed/relaxed; d=gmail.com; s=20120113; h=references:user-agent:in-reply-to:mime-version:content-type :content-transfer-encoding:subject:from:date:to:message-id; bh=/ngGYUHGw//Wmuh3p9YcrgnVHlVUEhfcCrg78vAVzeA=; b=tNHuDmb12Jg+xDUSgD6WhUctseue40dS284+WEYv5jEpEkr0bG5f57OSpD2PrB1zPN G8I9dDPpneiXsjm8lvh4X4AVStx1n1dqQjpEOIcsu/zicWssbfYdcXmTXqqSR4L5qf+y c1FAyqxWspp86N0L6hyO22WVqgmP3QKzobeTuU+X3yHywGEeIhJJG7mf5Jzg6E7M8g4Q 4G6FTa1kWw2HyZcdn7UPeq+qwXq6/OriwBNnZ+AsbVVY1XhNc2BBuu1lw3tGA38SS+T8 h3jXtqSjT7Z8KTqjLtxey2IB4UkSHFcoDTMdmM44V8+aoIrfgwcE9xp4Sxcog4ouJTmK J2uA== Received: by 10.229.105.100 with SMTP id s36mr7119667qco.88.1343051251968; Mon, 23 Jul 2012 06:47:31 -0700 (PDT) Received: from [192.168.2.7] (cpe-024-211-185-030.nc.res.rr.com. [24.211.185.30]) by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id hw15sm2072715qab.0.2012.07.23.06.47.30 (version=SSLv3 cipher=OTHER); Mon, 23 Jul 2012 06:47:31 -0700 (PDT) References: User-Agent: K-9 Mail for Android In-Reply-To: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Subject: Re: hardware or software synths From: Kyle Date: Mon, 23 Jul 2012 09:47:19 -0400 To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." Message-ID: <9d2c5c75-9470-4ab7-8afd-27969c2c2785@email.android.com> X-BeenThere: speakup@braille.uwo.ca X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.15 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, 23 Jul 2012 13:47:32 -0000 It is more practical, higher quality and more easily understandable to use software speech with a USB sound device these days, unless you are guaranteed a machine with a serial port and just happen to have an old hardware speech synthesizer laying around somewhere that you either already purchased or someone let you have on the cheap. It will take a bit of extra work to get all non-speech sounds playing through onboard sound and only speech playing through the USB device, but the price to do this is somewhere between 5 and 10 dollars rather than 50, 100 or even 1000 dollars or more, depending on the hardware synthesizer you happen to be able to purchase that is old enough to support a standard serial port. To be honest, although it is good to have hardware speech, especially since it comes up talking much earlier in the boot process, there just isn't a market for dedicated hardware speech at any price for any OS. There is, however, still a rather large market for USB headsets and other similar devices, which can be purchased for as little as about $3 and certainly no more than $50, and these have the attitional advantage of being usable on any machine that has a USB port. ~Kyle -- Kyle is a droid. The whole world knows it This e-mail shows it.