I sure wish someone would make a PcExpress synth card for the newer laptops. I have a PcExpress slot that will probably never be used. Glenn ----- Original Message ----- From: "Gregory Nowak" <greg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> To: "Speakup is a screen review system for Linux." <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Friday, January 30, 2009 1:46 PM Subject: Re: [OT] emulating a hardware synth -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Fri, Jan 30, 2009 at 01:50:53PM +0100, Robert Epprecht wrote: > Something i am thinking about is the possibility to emulate a hardware > synth with a second computer running a software synth. The software part > of it seams easy, but how would the two machines be connected? Please > tell me, how are existing hw synths connected? Do they use proprietary > pci cards or do they use existing plugs, like parallel or serial port, > usb, ethernet? *Can* speakup use any of the mentioned ports? Ethernet > would be my favorite. The hardware synths on the market currently are in the form of a proprietary pci card, via usb, and via RS232 serial. Older synths on the market, which one can get second-hand these days are in the form of isa cards, and can also be connected via RS232 serial ports. Unfortunately, speakup doesn't support the pci card synth, or synths connected via usb at this time; it only supports a few of the old isa card-type synths, and the rest connect via an RS232 port. Another unfortunate drawback is that the serial ports have to be ttyS0-ttyS3, and they have to appear at i/o addresses, and IRQ's that are standard for that specific serial port. As has been demonstrated on this list by those who have attempted it, adding a pci card to the system that has serial ports on it, doesn't work if those ports can't be configured as ttyS0-ttyS3 showing up with standard i/o addresses, and IRQ's. I suppose that ethernet would work, though it would involve heavily patching speakup I imagine, which is already itself a patch against the constantly changing kernel source. Granted, it is possible to build speakup as out-of-tree modules nowadays, so it doesn't necessarily mean patching the kernel anymore, but the fact remains that the speakup source has to be updated as the kernel source changes, in order to be able to build speakup as out-of-tree modules. What you're suggesting doing would certainly be welcomed by many, myself included, as it would allow for the installation of any speakup-enabled distribution on a computer without serial ports, regardless of if a distribution install media is setup to use software speech, or not. I seem to recall someone attempting something similar a while back, but I haven't heard anything about it for a while now, but maybe my memory is wrong here. I also stand to be corrected, as always, on what I've said here. If that's the case, then I'm sure someone will jump in hear, and do that. Greg - -- web site: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org gpg public key: http://www.romuald.net.eu.org/pubkey.asc skype: gregn1 (authorization required, add me to your contacts list first) - -- Free domains: http://www.eu.org/ or mail dns-manager at EU.org -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) iEYEARECAAYFAkmDWTAACgkQ7s9z/XlyUyDjEgCfb+XsXFnB02xDs0noznHvmfR1 IWQAniJkAHXDJzKFmBLd9OjJf/qYUb5t =Bfwo -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.0.386) Database version: 5.11660 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/ E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (6.0.0.386) Database version: 5.11660 http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor-antivirus/
