[DECtalk] It's time to bust some DECtalk myths

[Don]

Chime, ideally, you don't want to have to unload SpeakUp -- because then you
would wonder if SpeakUp *did* anything on it's way out.

Instead, if you could write to the /dev/stty port while SpeakUp was loaded,
but with some assurances that if you let the screen reader become quiescent
(so there is no reason for it to be chatting with the DECtalk via that
/dev/stty device), then you could effectively PAUSE the screenreader, inject
some commands to the DECtalk WITHOUT THE SCREEN READER ACTING ON ANY OF THEM.

So, you could set up SpeakUp, pick a voice, set pitch, rate, volume, etc.
Let it read for a while.  Then, pause your reading.  Wait some seconds for the
DECtalk interface to become idle -- to KNOW that SpeakUp isn't talking to
the DECtalk -- and insert a command directly to the DECtalk telling it to
change voices, for example.

When you resume the screen reader, you would assume that it would continue to
speak in this newly selected voice at whatever pitch, rate, volume you have
explicitly told it to use.

Then, if SpeakUp was resetting the voice to the voice it thinks you wanted,
(as Jayson suggested), you would hear the change and know that it was something
that SpeakUp had initiated.

If you suspect the DECtalk was reseting itself to its "default" voice, you
could have SpeakUp use one voice, manually tell it (via /dev/stty) to use
another and then see which voice it actually ends up using after this "drop".

[Sorry if that sounds confusing]

If you unload the SpeakUp module, then you wouldn't know if SpeakUp made some
changes to the DECtalk as it was being unloaded... "for your convenience".
I'm just trying not to let any code run unless necessary.

On 9/19/2022 6:18 PM, Chime Hart wrote:
> Hi Don: I did post your comments without your name, along with a pre-amble. I
> have not received any responses. I suppose I would need to unload a speakup
> module to more easily send commands directly, but I would at that point need a
> list of what exactly to type. So would probably put such a list on a laptop
> while Speakup was off.