Hello John Thanks, that sounds very interesting. I shall do a little research and see what I can find. It would appear that the protocol of the Apollo synth does not just read the characters it receives from the serial port, which is ashame. But if the double talk synth you mentioned can do this then it's worth investigating. I find it incredible that we still haven't got a non visual way of interacting with the BIOS or even DOS mode, Maybe one day? Cheers Darren. ----- Original Message ----- From: "John G. Heim" To: Sent: Sunday, April 25, 2010 2:51 AM Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Apollo speech synthesizer & DOS

There's a thing called a PC Weasel that looks like a VGA card to the bios but instead of a VGA signal it puts out a serial signal. So you can connect a terminal emulator to this thing with a null modem cable and get POST messages and run the BIOS setup progrtam in some cases. A lot of BIOS setup programs put the VGA card into graphics mode and then it doesn't work. But I have a Dell 8100 and a PC I built myself with an ASUS mobo and it works in both of those.

One time I connected my serial synth to it and was able to hear the POST messages.I'm not sure that would work with all hardware synths because I have a doubletalk LT and it has a really basic protocol. It pretty much just says anything it reads from the serial port.

You can also use the PC Weasel after boot as long as the display is in character mode. So it works with DOS, freeDOS, and linux. I am not sure they're making these PC Weasel cards anymore. But you might be able to find one on ebay.

-----Original Message----- .From: "Ben Mustill-Rose" .Sent: 4/24/10 5:43:40 AM .To: "Blind sysadmins list" .Subject: Re: [Blind-sysadmins] Apollo speech synthesizer & DOS . .You have to remember that you would need some form of screenreader to .work with the synthersizer before it would be able to read anything. . .The only thing that has ever been able to read the information that is .displayed just after post is the speaqualizer to my knolige. This .would be next to useless today since it connects using a isa slot on .your motherboard. . .On 24/04/2010, Darren Brewer wrote: .> Hi All .> .> I am thinking of buying a second hand Apollo speech synthesizer and was .> wondering how useful it might be in a DOS environment? .> .> For instance would it work in the recovery console without drivers? Might it .> also be capable of reading the POST information? .> .> Also if I were to use a DOS based programme such as spinrite, would it read .> out the various pages? .> .> Having never used a hardware speech synthesizer before any advice you could .> give me would be most welcome. .> .> Cheers .> .> Darren. .> _______________________________________________ .> Blind-sysadmins mailing list .> Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org .> http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins .> . ._______________________________________________ .Blind-sysadmins mailing list .Blind-sysadmins@lists.hodgsonfamily.org .http://lists.hodgsonfamily.org/mailman/listinfo/blind-sysadmins .

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

__________ NOD32 5057 (20100424) Information __________

This message was checked by NOD32 antivirus system. http://www.eset.com