[Blindapple] Emulating Echo
GUI Access
guiaccess at covad.net
Thu Jul 28 20:46:15 EDT 2005
>Guys,
>Has anyone thought that it might be easier to emulate a cricket than an echo?
Oh now there's a thought. Unfortunately I know no more about the
protocol for talking to a Cricket than I do for talking to an Echo.
>That way you're dealing with a serial interface, rather than an
>unknown quantity in how to talk to the synth itself.
>Then you'd just need code to strip out the control codes, and send
>the resultant text to a text file, or something.
>You still wouldn't be able to play space invaders under a2, because
>that relies on apple sound,
>but you might be able to use other speech enabled software.
The Cricket/Echo IIc/Echo LC has always intrigued me. I had an
opportunity to get my hands on an Echo LC once but passed since
Textalker-GS pulled out the serial Echo support and I wasn't going to
run 8-bit Textalker at that point. I have no idea what versions of
DOS 3.3 Textalker's supported the Cricket/Echo IIc.
GUI Access
>
>On Thu, Jul 28, 2005 at 07:30:42PM -0400, Jayson Smith wrote:
>> Hi,
>> Actually, this might be quite tricky. Because what Textalker is going to
>> send to the slot where the Echo is located certainly won't be the actual
>> text to be spoken, and probably not even the phonemic representation.
>> What's probably being sent is some form of very low level signaling to tell
>> the LPC chip what noises to make when. If you remember, on a real Apple,
>> whatever the Apple does comes to a dead hault when the Echo is speaking.
>> This is probably because Textalker is taking up the processor time by
>> converting the printed words into phonemes, then converting the phonemes
>> into the low level signals for the LPC chip, then sending those signals to
>> the card itself.
>> Jayson.
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "Tony Baechler" <tony at baechler.net>
>> To: "Blind Apple Discussions" <blindapple at jaybird.no-ip.info>
>> Sent: Thursday, July 28, 2005 10:08 AM
>> Subject: [Blindapple] Emulating Echo
>>
>>
>> > Hi. Is there a way of finding out what it sends to the slot to detect
>> > whether there is a real Echo or not? I tried various tricks to find out
>> > but as yet have been unsuccessful. Obviously I know it sends something
>> > because that is how the Doubletalk knows when to switch. Is there a way
>> to
>> > patch Textalker to only look for a card in slot 1? I think I am
>> reasonably
>> > close to making A2 simulate an Echo but I need a way to trick Textalker
>> > into sending to slot 1 even though there is no Echo there. I know there
>> is
>> > a way to do this with the older versions, but what about the 3.1 APH
>> > series? I believe that even though we can't really ever use a real Echo
>> > under emulation, it can be simulated fairly easily. I played with this a
>> > little and looked at the C source and it looks simple enough. Aalas, if
>> A2
>> > only emulated sound! However, if I can get something going under A2, it
>> > might be possible to make it work with a better emulator. Please, if you
>> > know any C programmers, contact me! This would take a good programmer
>> very
>> > little time to do since I think I know what needs to be changed.
>> >
>> > For those interested, all this stuff is in jump.c and vidout.c. The
>> jump.c
>> > opens a2.printlog if someone activates slot 1. The vidout.c is obviously
>> > for video output and opens a2.log if running under Linux. Both look
>> simple
>> > enough and I think they could be easily modified. The only other thing I
>> > might need is a dump of the Echo ROM, which I think is in the c400 range
>> > for slot 4 from within the monitor. I could very well have no idea what
>> > I'm talking about, but I would like to try more experiments. My initial
>> > attempt did work reasonably well, but not quite good enough.
>> >
>> > If anyone else wants to try this, do the following from DOS. First,
>> unload
>> > the screen reader and the synth drivers. I use Vocal-Eyes so I do "ve /u"
>> > and I use the DEC-Talk Express so I do "dtexp /u." Then, assuming you are
> > > in com1, do the following:
>> >
>> > a2 >com1 disk.dsk
>> >
>> > Replace disk.dsk with a bootable disk. Speech should come directly out
>> the
>> > synthesizer. Try cataloging to make sure. If something bombs, hit
>> Control
>> > C, "q" and enter. If nothing happens, repeat. Exit the DOS window or
>> > somehow reload your screen reader. This isn't perfect since you don't get
>> > review mode at all and it doesn't always speak right away as it should,
>> but
>> > it is a good start. I believe that it can be done, maybe easier than I
>> > thought. Criticisms are welcome.
>> >
>> > Oh, I made a mistake about A2. It is not licensed under the GPL. Make
>> > sure to read the comments in the source before changing anything. It
>> > allows free copying and distribution, but it doesn't comply with the GPL
>> so
>> > may not be considered "free" by some people. I'm not personally bothered
>> > by it, but others might be.
>> >
>> > At 08:21 PM 7/27/2005 -0400, you wrote:
>> > >Actually my Doubletalk can be freely switched between Echo and Doubletalk
>> > >mode. To use Doubletalk, in Basic you just type pr#X where X is the slot
>> > >where the card is installed. Then the card emulates a printer in that
>> slot,
>> > >so anything sent to it will be spoken with the Doubletalk voice. To use
>> the
>> > >Echo emulation, which isn't perfect but does get the job done, you must
>> load
>> > >the Textalker software as if you had a real Echo installed.
>> > >Jayson.
>> >
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>>
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