Screen reader for DOS needed

[Tony Baechler]

First, to run Vocal-Eyes, you must have a serial synthesizer.  I suppose an 
internal one might work, but I don't have one and I have no way to test.  I 
use the DECTalk Express.  Second, you need to make sure nothing else is 
using the serial port, specifically Speakup.  You can run both Vocal-Eyes 
and Speakup at the same time, but only with software speech.  Your DECtalk 
USB might support serial, but since it isn't identical to the Express, it 
might not work.  Also, dosemu in Debian testing does something weird with 
the display so Vocal-Eyes can't read it, but the version in Squeeze is fine. 
  Briefly, this is what I do:

rmmod speakup_dectlk
modprobe speakup_soft
espeakup
dosemu -s

The -s switch is what you need because it gives full serial port access but 
it means running dosemu as root.  You need to edit your configuration to 
point ttyS0 to /dev/ttyS0 instead of null or a file.  I still use the DOS 
view.exe that came with Vocal-Eyes and it works fine.  You can still press 
Ctrl+Alt+F2 to go to a console with Speakup.

On 8/31/2012 7:34 AM, Hart Larry wrote:
> Well, Tony, I guess you saved the best for last. Certainly curious you say
> you are running Vocal-Eyes in DosEmu. I would love to do that, but when I
> wrote Mike Lollar at GW Micro, he said I could not. Now, maybe my DecTalk U
> S B wouldn't have VE drivers? Vocal-Eyes would probably solve many of my
> speech issues, including, once again an exception dictionary.