[Blind-sysadmins] Accessible BIOS Utilities

I had the Artic business vision and before that an Echo 2E later on the Dectalk.

Love that these are things of the past, they sounded good (dectalk did anyway) but software synths are miles ahead in my opinion.

On Dec 18, 2014, at 1:12 PM, Chris Smart wrote:

...

am I the only one who misses the Accent synth and ASAP on dos machines? Most found Accent to be too stacato, but I really liked it at fast speeds. Same goes for Artic.

...

Hi,

Not really to me - Apollo has a very distinctive voice. I wish it could be reserected. Those were the days that the hardware synth manufacturers had several different variants of their synths - Dolphin for example had an internal Apollo ISA card,

At 01:06 PM 12/18/2014, you wrote: the two external Apollos/Junos and the PCMCIA Gemini card.

...

Andrew.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of mattias

...

Sent: 18 December 2014 17:13 To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

But the voice in orpheus tts sound verry verry verry like apollo

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh Ó Héiligh

...

Sent: den 18 december 2014 18:09 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

NO. Not really. Similar though.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of mattias

...

Sent: 18 December 2014 17:08 To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

But them have same voice?

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Andrew Hodgson

...

Sent: den 18 december 2014 18:00 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

Hi,

Juno is smaller, has a slightly inferior speaker and can be powered by battery where as Apollo is external powered synth.

Andrew.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of mattias

...

Sent: 18 December 2014 16:38 To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

Hm? Juno and appollo are the same? Or what are different

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Darragh Ó Héiligh

...

Sent: den 18 december 2014 17:19 To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

Vic, I was the same to a certain extent. When I started, I had a Juno and an Apollo 2.

I lived with Hal 4 for years! I mean years. I must have used it from 1993 to 2003 when I needed to do something in Dos. -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca

...

Sent: 18 December 2014 15:57 To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers

Well, back then the Braille n' Speak was an OK note taker. We didn't have much to choose from when it came to

Greetings The only accessible BIOS utilities I've come across were put out by Compaq and Toshiba. Compaq had a DOS based BIOS program that one could use with a DOS screen reader and synthesizer. Toshiba also had a utility that worked with their laptops. I have not come across any since then. It was just when processors were moving from the 486 to the Pentium platform. Is when I lost track of what happened. There were even some SCSI cards that were accessible through similar DOS text based utilities. Vic Pereira Shared Services Canada/Services partagés Canada 9-111 Lombard Avenue Winnipeg MB R3B 0T4 Vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca 204-781-5046 -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Anatoliy Shudrya Sent: December-18-14 12:58 PM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers Are these hardware synthesizers capable of making BIOS accessible? I got to IT with software synthesizers only and never had a change to work with one of the hardware once. Always wondered if it worse the effort to invest in one of the hardware synth to be able working on the BIOS level when needed. Do they have one with USB connection? Sorry it's kind of off the topic. Anatoliy -----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Chris Smart Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 10:44 AM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Serial Synthesizers Oh they are. I still prefer Eloquence for basic computing where I have the speech cranked up though. But for pleasure reading, the more human-sounding voices for sure. At 01:38 PM 12/18/2014, you wrote: portability.

...

...

It also worked as double duty as a portable

synthesizer. For example when taking a course where the classroom was a computer lab. If you had text to speech software that you could install on one of the classroom computers the BnS worked as a synthesizer. Remember there was a time when we didn't have access to software synthesizers. Many of us taking networking courses, classes that required the use of terminal emulation programs to access minis, mainframes etc. or anything else that used a computer we had to be flexible and creative to make those classroom environments work for us. If we expected the training companies and instructors to set all that up for us, we would have been waiting for a very very long time.

...

A friend of mine uses the following statement often:

"I used to be plastic, but now I am elastic."

I like that saying, because it demonstrates

how a little flexibility can go a long way

...

Vic Pereira Shared Services Canada/Services partagés Canada 9-111 Lombard Avenue Winnipeg MB R3B 0T4 Vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca 204-781-5046

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Stephen Guerra

...

Sent: December-18-14 9:39 AM To: 'Blind sysadmins list' Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] NVDA will soon support remote access

But why would anyone want a $695 speech synthesizer

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca

...

Sent: Thursday, December 18, 2014 9:03 AM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] NVDA will soon support remote access

The Blazie products also worked as speech synthesizers that could be connected to a serial port and accessed by text to speech software.

Vic Pereira Shared Services Canada/Services partagés Canada 9-111 Lombard Avenue Winnipeg MB R3B 0T4 Vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca 204-781-5046

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins

...

Sent: December-17-14 5:57 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] NVDA will soon support remote access

but braille an speak are hardware? On 2014-12-17 15:59, vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca wrote:

...

Hello Katherine

Some of us curmudgeons can put up with a lot of bad synthesized speech. When one is brought up on TriFormations FSST dumb terminals, Type n' Talk, Blazie Braille n' Speak etc. a lot of these software synthesizers aren't too shabby.

Also, you made a comment regarding the look of a UI. When someone has useable vision, the look of an application is as important to them as the quality of synthetic speech is to some of us.

Vic Pereira Shared Services Canada/Services partagés Canada 9-111 Lombard Avenue Winnipeg MB R3B 0T4 Vic.pereira@ssc-spc.gc.ca 204-781-5046

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Katherine Moss Sent: December-16-14 6:58 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] NVDA will soon support remote access

I've never tried Teamviewer and NVDA, but I've heard the audio from my friend's side when he uses Teamviewer to access my computer, and let me tell you, it sounds like crap.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 6:48 PM To: Blind sysadmins list Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] NVDA will soon support remote access

It sounds like it will be a good solution for blind on blind support so to speak & a blind person supporting a sighted friend. ISTM that corporations who also have sighted administrators will still have to deploy another remote access solution on top of

[mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of mattias this one though as it doesn't support video & I got the impression that they're not intending to make it into a fully featured remote administration tool.

...

...

Never the less, I'll be contributing to their campain as it's noticeabley better than TeamViewer & NVDA which is what I'm having to use for people at the moment.

Cheers, Ben.

On 12/16/14, Katherine Moss wrote:

...

Now that's awesome? not to mention, best programmers out there to do the job; everything I've purchased from Christopher, and I've nearly bought all of his stuff; I intend to finish those purchases off soon; I can't tell you how much productivity and joy I've gotten out of them. I use QRead and Chicken Nugget on the daily. If those are good, then I can only imagine what this will do; hopefully it will be good for both client OS and server OS access. Now all we need is a virtual channel over RDP.

-----Original Message----- From: Blind-sysadmins [mailto:blind-sysadmins-bounces@lists.hodgsonfamily.org] On Behalf Of Ben Mustill-Rose Sent: Tuesday, December 16, 2014 3:38 PM To: blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org Subject: [Blind-sysadmins] NVDA will soon support remote access

Hi all,

Taken from http://www.nvdaremote.com

NVDA Remote Access Preview Welcome to NVDA Remote Access NVDA Remote access will be a free add-on to NVDA which allows a user to remotely control another machine. It does its part to reverse the trend of blind unemployment by creating more job opportunities for tech entrepreneurs, system administrators, rehabilitation specialists, and educators. Why do we need Remote Access? NVDA Remote Access will give blind users the freedom to enjoy a number of career and educational options. Blind Technical Support Professionals and amateurs alike can Use NVDA Remote access to connect to their clients computers remotely in real time and walk them through multi-step procedures or teach them new applications, techniques and workflows. Educators can hear what their students are doing on their computers and vice versa, providing a perfect environment for hands-on training from afar. Whether in an office down the hall or a datacenter on the other side of the globe, NVDA Remote access will provide powerful, minimal latency access to the Windows desktop via speech. Audio Demonstration Listen to a podcast where we demonstrate and discuss the current prototype of NVDA Remote Access.

http://www.cucat.org/class_notes/CaviCasts/2014/20141213_nvda_remote.

...

m p3 Who are we? Tyler Spivey and Christopher Toth, creators of popular accessible software such as 3MT Reader , QRead , Chicken Nugget , MushReader , and more.

Cheers, Ben.

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins

_______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins _______________________________________________ Blind-sysadmins mailing list Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org https://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/listinfo/blind-sysadmins