Linux with Software Synth on Dell Enspiron2600 Laptop

[Martin McCormick]

"Kevin Doucet" writes:
> What is your favorite installation method and which synth do you use?

	Anything that will give me feedback on what is
happening. Up to now, I have used a P.C. running MSDOS and a
screen reader I wrote in 8086 assembler in the late eighties and
early nineties which drives an equally old Echo Speech
synthesizer. I then run mskermit for the VT100 terminal
emulation which is part of kermit as well as the kermit transfer
protocol which is a darn good way to send short files from one
system to another if there is no Ethernet connection between
them.

	If you have a DOS screen reader and speech synthesizer
and a free serial port, you can certainly use this method. The
trouble is that all this stuff is getting very old and RS232
ports are a vanishing breed at least on the main bus.

	As for the synthesizer, I haven't bought one in several
years so there are plenty of people here who can give you more
recent information. None of the speech boxes are perfect since
English is so fickle. I remember the Echo was in the $100-$200
range so it was a good deal. I don't know if there is anything
serious like it today. You will get better speech for more
money, but the law of diminishing returns kicks in rather
quickly.

	If the live CD's with speech engines get more
dependable, they are a wonderful solution. The developers of
these mostly no-cost distributions have an almost impossible job of
trying to make a huge variety of hardware cooperate.

	Now, for the short answer. My favorite method is the one
that works. At this time, things are in a state of flux.

Martin McCormick