First, I believe <pcsforeveryone.com> Also sells machines with serial ports. If it does not, or if it would just save me some big bucks, I may want to assemble a machine, as John did. John, how much sighted help did you need with that, if any? My limited experience with trying to assemble a computer indicated that some stuff can be known only by way of color coding, but I'd like to have been wrong about that. (I have no sight.) Thanks! Al -----Original Message----- From: speakup-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:speakup-bounces at braille.uwo.ca] On Behalf Of John Heim Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 5:50 PM To: Speakup is a screen review system for Linux. Subject: Re: still more on bug <speakup at braille.uwo.ca> Sent: Tuesday, February 14, 2012 2:00 PM Subject: Re: still more on bug > John Heim wrote > | Well, admittedly, we have a problem down the road regarding serial > | hardware synths. But it will be years before serial ports go away > | entirely. Every Dell server class machine still comes with at least > | one serial port. I don't know about other server manufacturers but I > | would guess they're the same. In fact, even dell small footprint > | desktops still have serial ports. So I think it will be some time > | before server class machines don't come with serial ports. And even > | after serial ports become obsolete, speakup won't be obsolete, it > | will just have to start supporting USB synths. > > You say just like it's easy to fix speakup to do what you want it to do. > It's not that easy in fat to fix the code, hell i'd fix it if i could > my husband would fix it if he could probably, but it's not that easy. > First of all, I didn't say it was going to be easy. But have you tried? Are you an experienced C coder? Are you saying you tried and found it couldn't be done? > I've got a couple serial synths laying around but the fact is that > i've not had a computer with a serial port since 2007 so yep, guess > they're out of date. Last time i tried ordering a computer i couldn't > get del or hp to add them even though i wanted them. I am typing this on a Dell Optiplex 760 with a serial port. We have about 100 760s all with serial ports. We have another 40 small footprint 760s in our student labs all with serial ports. We have about a dozen newer Dell desktops and they all have serial ports. I don't know how you managed to order a Dell w/o a serial port but its not that hard to get one with it. And those are just desktops. Of course, every one of our servers has a serial port. We have 3 mail servers, 2 DNS servers, 3 web servers, and 6 machines in our VMware cluster. All have serial ports. I just built myself a machine for home with parts ordered from newegg. The mobo didn't have an external serial port but it does have a serial port header. So then it was just a matter of attaching the appropriate cable. So even a machine I built myself has a serial port. Look, I'm not saying you don't come across machines w/o serial ports. But holy cow, I have certainly never had any trouble finding machines with serial ports. Laptops & apples... You're in trouble there. _______________________________________________ Speakup mailing list Speakup at braille.uwo.ca http://speech.braille.uwo.ca/mailman/listinfo/speakup
