SY.FDC@cu20b (Frank da Cruz) (10/01/85)
I've had a call from Kenneth Reed at NASA in Greenbelt, MD (phone 301-344-8414) asking how Kermit can be used effectively by blind people. Back in the days when computers had terminals, you could put a device like a Votrax or DECtalk or whatever between the terminal and the computer, and it could try to speak the letters and numbers, or words, as they went by. But microcomputers don't generally have a place to attach such a device. Kenneth says his Apple II has a special card that somehow gets characters just before they're about to be put on the screen and presumably can transmit them to a speaking device, but that's just for the Apple. I'm sure there has been a lot of discussion about this elsewhere, but I must have missed it. How can blind people use microcomputer applications in general? Obviously, graphics-oriented stuff is mostly out (and therefore, presumably, also the Macintosh). In MS-DOS, maybe there are console drivers that can intercept characters, strip out (or interpret) formatting information, and send the text out the serial port to, say, a Votrax, or maybe there are IBM PC boards that "speak the screen" directly. Anyhow, Kenneth's department is selecting microcomputers and he'd like to see them pick one that text oriented applications (like Kermit) can be adapted to give comprehensible audible output. If you have any information, please post it and also give Kenneth a call at the number listed. By the way, the way the Kermit file transfer display is done is important here. On MS-DOS systems, a "form" is put up on the screen at the beginning of the file transfer, and then numbers and messages are filled in and updated randomly throughout. If one were to read this stuff in sequence as it appeared on the screen, it would be a pretty confusing jumble. Also, you'd need a pretty fast talker at high baud rates... The serial output of local-mode Unix Kermit or DEC-20 Kermit would be a lot more comprehensible when interpreted by a voice device. -------
peter@graffiti.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (10/02/85)
> I've had a call from Kenneth Reed at NASA in Greenbelt, MD (phone 301-344-8414) > asking how Kermit can be used effectively by blind people. Back in the days > when computers had terminals, you could put a device like a Votrax or DECtalk > or whatever between the terminal and the computer, and it could try to speak > the letters and numbers, or words, as they went by. But microcomputers don't > generally have a place to attach such a device. Kenneth says his Apple II > has a special card that somehow gets characters just before they're about to > be put on the screen and presumably can transmit them to a speaking device, > but that's just for the Apple. Attach the votrax to the printer port & turn on echoprint, perhaps? ^PrtSc on the IBM, ^P on CP/M.
glen@intelca.UUCP (Glen Shires) (10/07/85)
> I've had a call from Kenneth Reed at NASA in Greenbelt, MD (phone 301-344-8414) > asking how Kermit can be used effectively by blind people. Back in the days > when computers had terminals, you could put a device like a Votrax or DECtalk > or whatever between the terminal and the computer, and it could try to speak > the letters and numbers, or words, as they went by. But microcomputers don't > generally have a place to attach such a device. Kenneth says his Apple II > has a special card that somehow gets characters just before they're about to > be put on the screen and presumably can transmit them to a speaking device, > but that's just for the Apple. As a start, most computers with card slots have add-on plug-in serial cards which can attach to speech synthesizers. And most operating systems have commands to direct output thru this card. (MSDOS will with the command: CTTY COM1: This works well for simple programs that only write to the screen with OS calls and scroll the screen as they go. However, you're right that a lot of software is screen oriented and doesn't work well. You could attempt to write a filter for these programs (but that would be no trivial task). -- ^ ^ Glen Shires, Intel, Santa Clara, Ca. O O Usenet: {ucbvax!amd,pur-ee,hplabs}!intelca!glen > ARPA: "amd!intelca!glen"@BERKELEY \-/ --- stay mellow