Hi Ned: Yes, indeed, the DecTalk has been resurrected in a sleeker, mmore up-to-date iteration; supporting both USB and serial connections, which makes it fully backwards compatible. Prior to december 31, 2004, Innovation Rehabilitation Technologies, Inc., (I R T I), was offering it for $645. The current street price (on blind street, <smile.), is $695. I recently purchased one, and, while you can't use it in USB mode under linux (at least not at the current time), it works fine under linux when using the serial cable. Even when using it in serial mode (as you necessarily will do when using linux), you will be able to use the USB cable to provide power to the unit, which obviates the need to rely on the user-replaceable standard 9-volt battery (which only gives you about an hour anyway) or worse yet, the stereotypically obnoxious and cumbersome wall wart. For what it's worth, feel free to access my previous list post on this subject, posted December 8th, 2004, 3:08 pm EDT. John Hi Laura, So a brand new dec talk hardware synth is available from the company (DEC) itself? How much money, if you don't mind? I have identical problem. At school they are not sure how to deal with accessible Linux for me so they were wondering do I have a laptop (I don't) but I was eager to buy one if it is up to the task. I'll be watching very closely answers on this one! thanks for raising the question. Ned
