🚀 go-pugleaf

                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 958

                            Monday, June 28, 1993

Today's Topics:


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                        Screen Reader/2 for OS/2 2.1
                                Tv schedules
                                Tv Schedules
                          Re: Kitchen Sink Program
                                 Re: Speech
                             Qemm and config.sys
                        OpenBook, Window Bridge etc.
                          Diagraming and programing
                            Upgrade, then trouble
                                  Jaws 2.3


                                ******


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                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 337-1518



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Subject: Screen Reader/2 for OS/2 2.1
From: Richard.Schwerdtfeger@f49.n272.z1.fidonet.org (Richard Schwerdtfeger)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:272/49 - Calliope's Den, Garrison NY


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

 Dear Screen Reader/2 User

 On May 18, 1993 IBM introduced OS/2 2.1. The new level of OS/2 has many
 exciting improvements and features that offer many advantages for
 upgrading to 2.1 once it becomes officially available on June 14th.

 Due to of some of the changes in OS/2 2.1, some incompatibilities now
 exist between the current level of Screen Reader/2 and OS/2 2.1. Because
 of this incompatibility, you should not load OS/2 2.1 with the current
 level of Screen Reader/2. Loading the new level of OS/2 with the current
 level of Screen Reader/2 will result in damage to the operating system
 that could require a complete system re-load.

 IBM Special Needs Systems is currently working on an upgrade that will
 allow Screen Reader/2 to work with OS/2 2.1. We expect to have it
 available by mid 3rd quarter 1993. This new Screen Reader/2 level will
 also have some improvements such as performance increases, additional
 profiles and Seamless Windows support. We are looking forward to
 demonstrating this new level and the improvements at the American
 Council of the Blind and National Federation of the Blind conferences
 in early July.

 Please be sure to call us on 1-800-426-4832 and register your Screen
 Reader/2 so we can send you a free upgrade as soon as it is available.

 Sincerely,

 John J. Roberts
 Product Manager
 IBM Special Needs Systems

 Regards, Jim
 BELUE at BCRVM1
 USIB2MJ6 at IBMMAIL
 Phone: T/L 982-3916 Outside (407) 982-3916

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Internet: Richard.Schwerdtfeger@f49.n272.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: Tv schedules
From: Lee.Mounger@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org (Lee Mounger)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:129/89.0 - BlinkLink, Pittsburgh PA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Greetings Everyone,

     I wanted to write and let everyone know about my new program that
is, as far as I'm concerned, absolutely the greatest thing since
sliced bread.  I know a few of you are using this program but I
think it's the answer for everybody who ever wanted to know what
was showing on television at any given time.
My search for Tv schedule access led me to a program on the
consumer electronics forum on Compuserve called Peg, short for
Personal Entertainment Guide.  I left a message for a trial
subscription and after some communication with Mark Kaplinski, the
program's developer, I was able to download from Compuserve a
version of this program especially designed for speech and braille
computer users, as well as two weeks worth of schedules.
Without going into much detail, let me say that this program is one of
the best, yet simplest programs for a given application I've ever used.
You can configure the program by using different channel files which you
can construct in your word processor.  Let's say you want to know what's
on all the channels you have access to on your given cable company
installation.  You simply make a file called say, cable.chn by
collecting only those channels you have access to in a word processor
from the Peg master channel file.  When you access the program and load
cable.chn, only the channels you have selected are shown.  However,
let's say you're only curious about what might be on Home Box Office and
Showtime.  You simply make and load a file called movie.chn or whatever,
and when loaded, only selections for Home Box Office and Showtime are
shown.  When started, the program defaults to the current time and
begins showing you the next events on the schedule.  When possible, the
program gives descriptions of many movies and syndicated shows as well
as times.  You can also jump to any given day and time to find out
what's showing.  When you're sitting on a given Tv listing or event as
it's called, you can do things like log it to a capture file for later
reference or see when it might be shown again during the schedule.  You can
also enter a Search string such as say, baseball or comedy, and the
program will search the database for all listings containing the words
baseball or comedy.  There are listings available for a number of cities
but not for Houston, so I just downloaded the satellite listings which
still give me the information for all the cable channels I have other
than the local ones.
Because of the expense of downloading from Compuserve, I understand that
plans are to mail subscribers schedules on disk, one month at a time, at
a cost of about $7 per month.  I've had the program for about a week and
I have to admit I've gone pretty much berserk over it.
Anyone who wants to inquire about this fantastic program can call Paul
Migliorelli, the one responsible for the braille and speech friendly
version, at (718-3532865.  As of now, you still have to download the
schedules from Compuserve but the mail-out disk version is coming soon.
I'll gladly pay $7 per month for this service and all I can say is, try
this program and you'll be hooked for good.  Later.

... Catch the Blue Wave!
___ Blue Wave/QWK v2.12

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Uucp: ..!uunet!bunker!hcap!hnews!129!89.0!Lee.Mounger
Internet: Lee.Mounger@p0.f89.n129.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: Tv Schedules
From: Steve.Matzura@f203.n2603.z1.fidonet.org (Steve Matzura)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:2603/203 - The BATcave Mail On, Brooklyn NY


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Mark unfortunately is married to CompuServe for distribution of the
licensed TV listings, but there's a demo of the package that will
soon be amde available and uploaded to various places around the
country.  The demo will permit you to look at either six or twelve
hours of TV listings (Mark hasn't decided on just how many listings
to include in the database yet--size is the primary
consideration).  The demo can be used over and over, you just see
the same listings over and over, but it gives you an idea of how
the package works, and if you're interested after that, you just
have to contact Mark either by phone or mail or something.

Paul Migliorelli and I are trying to get Mark interested in getting
an FTSC-compatible mailer like FrontDoor or something.  He's
already running a TBBS board for his product, and having a
Fido-compatible mailer would sure make things easier, but because
he's affiliated with CompuServe it might not make any sense to do
so for the time being.  I don't know whether he has a limited-time
contract with CIS, but I do believe that there will be another
distribution method for the biweekly TV listings other than CIS for
those (like myself) who are not CIS users.

As soon as the demo is ready for global distribution, either Paul
or I will make mention of it here and upload it everywhere.

According to Judy Dixon, Consumer Relations Officer for the
National Library Service, there are twenty thousand people in this
country who are visually impaired and either own or have access to
a PC at some point in their day.  It ten per cent of these twenty
thousand could become PEGspeak users, that would more than make
Mark's day.  I believe it is definitely possible for this to
happen, in which case his blind-user subscribers would surpass his
sighted subscribers (who use a totally different package--same
data, different presentation methodology) by a ratio of better than
six to one!  And to think that, in the beginning, people told him
that the idea of a special-purpose re-write of his software for
blind people wasn't worth anything!  He knows differently now, I
can assure you of that, and PEGspeak, while in its infancy, is
definitely going to make its mark.  Just think, for about the price
of a print TV Guide, you can have it on your computer!

--
Uucp: ..!uunet!bunker!hcap!hnews!2603!203!Steve.Matzura
Internet: Steve.Matzura@f203.n2603.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: Re: Kitchen Sink Program
From: Richard.Webb@f8.n290.z1.fidonet.org (Richard Webb)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:290/8 - Iowa MIDI BBS, Des Moines IA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

HI Sam,

That's one way to do it.  The way we've got our .set file for asap set
up, you don't get the status line unless you move the reading cursor to
the top line, it's still at the top of the screen, but we've set a quiet zone
there.

It sure talks nice, though.  That's my main form of tet reader, is qedit
with the continuous read mode.  I'm glad i can use it again, when I was
working setting up a man's computer for him for awhile, I had to fight
with Artic business vision, and the let strokes pass through was a
bummer, because my favorite exit with save for Q is ctrl-kx, which
didn't work worth a dime with BV.

In fact, one of the things I like most about Q is the way a user can
customize it to his liking.  See yuh later.

RICHARD WEBB

RICHARD WEBB

... DOOR:(n.) Something you throw windows out of.
___ Via Silver Xpress V3.02

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Subject: Re: Speech
From: Richard.Webb@f8.n290.z1.fidonet.org (Richard Webb)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:290/8 - Iowa MIDI BBS, Des Moines IA


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Hi there.

I think we were talking about Midi with speech, I lostthe thread
somewhere, but I believe that was it.

If so, I'm sure we were discussing sequencer programs that work well
with speech, and I just found out yesterday that Cakewalk will make the
full docs availible in Ascii to registered users.  When you register
your copy of Cakewalk just send in the card, and a note that explains
that you needs the docs in ascii, and they'll send them to you.

Glad I could be of some help to you, even if this wasn't what we were
talking about.  If it was, I don't know why you'd need a graphics card.

See yuh

midi.sig my signature file for midi conference

RICHARD WEBB

... [BRAILLE] . . PROMOTE LITERACY FOR THE BLIND
___ Via Silver Xpress V3.02

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Internet: Richard.Webb@f8.n290.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: Qemm and config.sys
From: Debbie.Gillespie@f24.n3602.z1.fidonet.org (Debbie Gillespie)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:3602/24 - ADAnet One (tm) Net, Pinson AL


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

DT>     Would be very interested to see your config.sys that gets that kind
DT> of free memory with Window Bridge. I have never succeeded in getting
DT> Window Bridge to load high.

We couldn't in the beginning either until we added the /R: (plus
the region area number) after the LOADHI command.  The /R: is the
swich to manually load your program in to the region of upper
memory.  The loadhi command by itself wouldn't do it.  First use
LOADHI to see where you have the free memory available, you will be
presented with a table in columns; region area, size, and status.
As you probably know the LOADHI command is part of QEMM itself.
This table essentially shows you how many areas of memory you have,
the number of bytes in each area and if they are currently bbeing
utilized.

Note: with the latest version of windowbridge 1.21 dated May 21,
this /R: swich is not required.  We have just had to take it out of
our autoexec file yesterday as with it included the program would
not load in to high memory but the calculator would.

I will still send you our CONFIG.SYS file as you requested. Here it
is.

DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM FRAME=NONE
rem DEVICE=C:\QEMM\QEMM386.SYS RAM FRAME=NONE EXTMEM=256 DOS=HIGH
FILES=30
BUFFERS=30
STACKS=9,512

That's it from this neck of the woods, sorry for the delay in responding to your
 message but was away visiting my family.

Debbie

 * Curiousity! What's that?
===
 * RoseReader 2.10 P001087 Entered at [CRS]
 * RoseMail 2.10: Adanet: CRS Online, Toronto, On.

 # Origin: ADAnet(tm) NetHub Birmingham, Alabama (205)854-9074  (94:94/1)

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Internet: Debbie.Gillespie@f24.n3602.z1.fidonet.org




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Subject: OpenBook, Window Bridge etc.
From: David.Tanner@f234.n109.z1.fidonet.org (David Tanner)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:109/234 - Braille Bank BBS, Oakton Va


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Your comments about what you expect would happen with Window Bridge
running at the same time as speech from a OpenBook driver were
pretty close to correct. Actually the way I get around that is when
I go into Openbook from the Windows task list or from the Windows
menus the first thing I do Isto issue a control -shift - escape
command which turns of Window Bridge speech off. When you finish
using Openbook and are at the prompt "PRESS SCAN KEY TO SCAN" if
you want to return to some other Windows application issue the
control - shift -escape command to turn Window Bridge speech back
on and then bring up the Windows task list with control - escape.
At that point you loose Openbook speech and return to speech output
from Window Bridge. That process works really well with the DEC PC
card. I have not seen the process work that smoothly with most of
the other synthesizers that OpenBook supports through a serial
port, but it should be able to be done at some point.  D. T.

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Subject: Diagraming and programing
From: Christopher.Hill@p233.f4115.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Christopher Hill)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:124/4115.233 - Southern Crossroads, Grapevine TX


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Dennis Bartlett wrote in a message to All:

DB> I am currently taking a course in becoming a computer
DB> programer. I wonder if any of you could give me some ideas
DB> on how to understand diagrams as they relate to system
DB> design? I am a Braille user.

I assume you're talking about things like dataflow diagrams,
context diagrams, etc.  If so, I can see two ways of approaching
it. I often had decent results if somebody just described the
diagram and the dataflows to me.  If you can't do it this way, I
can see two alternatives.  1. Try to draw the thing in braille.
This may work, but some of the diagrams can get kinda extreme.
Another method, for dfd's for example, would be to write down all
the names for all the bubbles in a column, and next to each name,
put what it connects to, along with the name of the dataflow.
Reading this table should give you a good general idea.

As far as drawing diagrams for others, the only method I can
suggest is to describe what you want to a sighted person and have
them draw it for you.  This is what worked best for me.  Hope this
helps..

Chris

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Subject: Upgrade, then trouble
From: Christopher.Hill@p233.f4115.n124.z1.fidonet.org (Christopher Hill)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:124/4115.233 - Southern Crossroads, Grapevine TX


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

Steve Matzura wrote in a message to All SynPhonix Users:

SM> Hi all:

SM> If you're a SynPhonix user--not an ARTIC 210 or 215 user,
SM> but the old SynPhonix (pre-210) board--then I need your
SM> help!

SM> But that's OK, because I was able to get a used 386 33
SM> megahertz mother board to replace it with!  Now I have a
SM> "real" computer!

SM> Now here's the problem:  Ever since the upgrade, my
SM> SynPhonix board has been making strange un-SynPhonix-like
SM> sounds when it talks, like the kinds of sounds the old Apple
SM> 2 Echo board made sometimes.  I'm wondering, is it because
SM> my machine is now so fast it's feeding the SynPhonix board
SM> too quickly?  So, I dropped my machine's speed down from 33
SM> to 25 megahertz, same thing.

For a board that old, even 25mhz is probably too fast.  One thing
you might try, is get somebody to look through your (if ami) bios,
and see if it allows you to change the bus speed.  This is done by
one of the following mechanisms:  8-bit i o waitstates, any other
8-bit waitstate you might see, also a(trying to remember the exact
wording) bus-clock divider.  What I'm trying to say, is you may be
able to slow the bus down to make the speech board happier.  If you
can't do that, and if you have trouble getting the thing to boot
with speech, I'd suggest an upgrade.  Later..  Chris

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Subject: Jaws 2.3
From: Kelly.Ford@f8.n121.z1.fidonet.org (Kelly Ford)
Organization: FidoNet node 1:121/8 - JW-PC DataFlex.HST, Sun Prairie WI


[This is from the Blink Talk Conference]

I was pretty vocal about my criticism of JAWS 2.3 and the lack of
what I'd call an intelligent way to handle macros.  That criticism
still stands at least for me.  However, I believe in being fair and
when something's good I think it is worth mentioning as well.

In the extremely positive category is the enhancements H-J has made
to the Say dll features in JAWS 2.3.  Now while reading you can
adjust the pitch, volume an eate of the speech.  They even have a
rewind and fast forward feature with synthsizers that support
indexing.  JAWS 2.3 combined with, at least my synthesizer of
choice, the Accent SA, makes a great way to easily read a load of
text.

* OFFLINE 1.54

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Uucp: ..!uunet!bunker!hcap!hnews!121!8!Kelly.Ford
Internet: Kelly.Ford@f8.n121.z1.fidonet.org




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                 End of Issue # 958 of the Blind News Digest

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