[Blindapple] introduction

[Jayson Smith]

Hi,
I only know of the one version.  He probably means he's got a few copies of
the disk.  It's too bad they are in storage and not easily accessible.  I
could image some of the disks for him, but he'd have to mail them to me, and
with items like this, insurance against loss or damage is pretty much
useless since if they get lost/damaged in the mail, all the money in the
world couldn't replace some of these disks.
Jayson.

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jason Brown" <jasoncbrown at nctv.com>
To: "Blind Apple Discussions" <blindapple at jaybird.no-ip.info>
Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 5:44 PM
Subject: Re: [Blindapple] introduction


> wow, what different versions of space invaders were made?
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Tony Baechler" <tony at baechler.net>
> To: "Blind Apple Discussions" <blindapple at jaybird.no-ip.info>
> Sent: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 1:31 AM
> Subject: Re: [Blindapple] introduction
>
>
> > Hi.  As far as I know, I still have it.  I think I actually have a
couple
> > different versions of it.  Getting it out of storage and into a disk
image
> > form is a different matter though.  I was going to get an IIgs but I've
> > given up on that.  Besides I have nowhere to put it and I don't know the
> > first thing about imaging.  Also to be honest I don't really have enough
> of
> > an interest now to make it worth my while.  I still like and collect
Apple
> > stuff, but I've pretty much resigned myself to leaving my Apple stuff in
> > storage permanently, at least until I find lots of room to set up
another
> > computer.  I don't have the luxury of a basement or other spare rooms,
and
> > I have three or four computers set up already.
> >
> > Now, about emulating the Echo card.  This might be easier than you would
> > think.  Actually emulating the Echo sound would probably be
> > impossible.  You might as well forget about hearing an Echo voice come
out
> > of your emulated Apple.  However, there might still be a way.  I know of
> at
> > least two emulators with source available.  Actually three, but one
never
> > got completed.  I am only talking about emulators which are
> > accessible.  One is called A2 and is written in C.  The other is Applemu
> > and is written in assembly so it would be hard to port to anything but
> > DOS.  The third is Appleemu and is also in C and assembler but was never
> > finished.  Probably the easiest one to hack would be A2.  It runs best
on
> > Linux but can be made to run under DOS.  Somehow it would need to be
> > programmed to set up a dummy card in slot 4 or somewhere that the Echo
> > goes.  That way you could run Textalker and it wouldn't crash.  Also
> > somehow that slot would have to route everything to a port, such as a
> > serial port.  What you could then do is plug in something like the
> DEC-Talk
> > Express into a serial port, run the emulator, brun textalker, and you
> would
> > have approximately the same thing as an Echo emulator.
> >
> > Now, if you know anything about speech, you will see one obvious
> > problem.  That is that the codes for the Litetalk, DEC-Talk etc are
> > completely different than the Echo.  Actually in that regard the
Litetalk
> > would be the easiest to work with because the codes are very similar.
My
> > solution to that would be to write a new, specialized Textalker or maybe
> > look at Scat for the Doubletalk.  Someone would have to change all the
> > codes to match the other synthesizer.  Another option would be to do
that
> > within the program itself.  In other words, when Control E, C is sent to
> > slot 4, increase the speech rate to 300 words per minute or something by
> > sending the [: code.  That would be a lot of extra programming though,
but
> > Textalker is simple enough that it would not be impossible.
> >
> > Finally, there is yet another idea which might work but I haven't tested
> > it.  I have an alternative screen reader for the Apple.  It is not
> > Textalker but is similar.  It's supposed to be compatible.  I think, but
> > I'm not sure, that I have source.  In that case, it's just a matter of
> > compiling that screen reader and using it in place of Textalker.
Routing
> > the slot to the serial port is easy, Applemu will do it already.  A2
> > supports dumping anything sent to a printer to a log file, so something
> > similar could be done to send slot 4 to Com1 or ttyS0.  Jayson also has
> > this screen reader but it isn't otherwise in general distribution.  Even
> if
> > it doesn't have source, I think it supports other synths easily
> > enough.  Any thoughts?  Any programmers on this list?
> >
> > At 05:13 AM 7/26/2005 -0400, you wrote:
> > >Hi,
> > >Sounds like Space Invaders to me.  Once again, I don't have this disk,
> but
> > >someone I talked to once had it.  Don't know if anybody here on this
list
> > >still has it, but if so, we'd love to have it!
> > >I do wish that an emulator did support the Echo synthesizer.  It'd have
> to
> > >be a Windows or Linux-based emulator, but if it were to emulate an Echo
> > >card, that would give us the accessibility to Apple stuff we want
through
> > >the traditional Textalker software.
> > >Jayson.
> >
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>
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