<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<HTML><HEAD>
<META http-equiv=Content-Type content="text/html; charset=us-ascii">
<META content="MSHTML 6.00.6000.16481" name=GENERATOR></HEAD>
<BODY>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>A couple of years
ago I asked about this on the speakup list. I got a variety of responses, but
most people had either never gotten their Dec PC working, or it was working
perfectly and they had never experienced my problems.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Perhaps this list
might have a subscriber with some troubleshooting ideas.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN
class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Mine is a Dec PC2,
the second ISA card that digital designed. It's quite a bit smaller than
the original Dec PC.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I've downloadded the
dec_pc.tgz archive from the speakup site as the speakup documentation for 2.0
suggests. Since I hadn't gotten this working before, I this time compared it to
the actual contents of the dec_pc subdirectory in the speakup 2.0 source code.
The binary files were identical.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>The binary files are
dtload, a Linux executable, along with dtpc.dic, kernel.sys, lts.exe,
ph.exe,and cmd.exe. I can't remember if there was also a user.exe, but anyway,
these looked like the files that come with the DecPC1 DOS
drivers.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I read through the
source, and though it isn't exactly filled with helpful comments, it appears to
be a simple replacement for the DOS dtload, and its purpose is to load
those other files in to the decPC card's onboard RAM.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Following the
directions in the README and speakup documentation, I stashed all these files in
/usr/local/lib/dec_pc and fixed the permissions. I edited the dec_pc.conf and
change the line<BR>io=0x340</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>to io=0x250, since
my dip switches are set to use that I/o address and it works with the DOS
drivers on my machine using that address.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Next I tried running
dtload and got the error:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007> <FONT face=Arial
size=2>kernel already loaded.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I tried the -v and
the -t but though it did enter test mode and let me type, it didn't speak. The
-v reported attempts to load the files, but concluded with the familiar "kernel
already loaded". </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I rebooted to my DOS
partition , and then from DOS, loaded the Dec PC2 drivers as if I were going to
use a DOS screen reader. They talked and I tested by echoing some output to
COM4.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Then using Loadlin
from DOS I booted linux and tried the dtload again. It still
said</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>
kernel already loaded.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Next I replaced all
the lts.exe, dtpc.dic, kernel.sys, ph.exe, cmd.exe and user.exe files with their
dec PC2 equivalents. In other words, I overwrote the decPC1 files with the dec
PC2 files. I also put user.exe in that directory, since I'm sure the PC 2 needs
it but not sure the PC1 needed it.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I then rebooted,
straight in to linux, without DOS and tried running dtload again. I still got
the "kernel already loaded message. I double-checked that all the files were
listed in the correct order in the text file dec_pc.conf. By "correct" I mean
the order they are loaded by the DOS version of dtload. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Still it said
"kernel already loaded".</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Last of all, now
using the files from my decPC2 DOS drivers disk, I rebooted to DOS. I first ran
the DOS drivers and tested that the PC2 was talking. I then booted from DOS in
to Linux using loadlin and tried dtload -t again.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>This time it still
said "kernel already loaded" but it talked in test mode.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I repeated the tests
and it appears that the DOS drivers need to be loaded first. Or maybe the linux
dtload isn't doing a darned thing with the DOS drivers loaded. Anyway, if I boot
straight to linux it doesn't talk ever, but if I load DOS drivers first, it will
talk but only in test mode.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Finally, I tried
echoing the decpc keyword to the synth_name in /proc:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>echo decpc
>/proc/speakup/synth</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>as the documentation
suggested and I also tried:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>echo decpc
>/proc/speakup/synth_name </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>in case there was a
typo in the speakup documentation. </FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>either way when I
cat /proc/speakup/synth_name, it still says none. I used ssh to control the
machine so I wouldn't need a working synthesizer for these
tests.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I had set up lilo
and loadlin to boot with the parameter speakup_synth=none to be sure there was
no confusion. But speakup never finds my dec pc2.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>I can guess that
there might be three causes for my problem:</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>1 -- I don't have a
kernel with the decpc module. This is slackware 11.0's stock speakup.s kernel. I
am not experienced enough to tell whether the decpc module is available or not.
Maybe someone can help me figure out at least whether the module is
available.</FONT></SPAN><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>2 -- Dtload was
never supposed to work with DecPC2. No matter what I try, if this is the
problem, the dec pc2 isn't going to work with speakup. Will it work with other
access solutions like emacspeak or yasr?</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>3 -- The
instructions left out a crucial step I still need to perform. I am an
intermediate level user, and there is much I still don't know how to do. But I
am good at following directions.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial size=2>Any thoughts would
be appreciated.</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2>--Debee</FONT></SPAN></DIV>
<DIV><SPAN class=937312703-18062007><FONT face=Arial
size=2></FONT></SPAN> </DIV></BODY></HTML>