🚀 go-pugleaf

                            THE BLIND NEWS DIGEST

                                 Issue # 982

                            Monday, July 19, 1993

Today's Topics:


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               Screen Readers and LAN access via MSDOS Kermit
                             manuals in braille
                         Re: Request For Information
                               Wordperfect 6.0
                               grade 3 braille
                                 BLINK HELP
                              VOX documentation
                        CD-ROMs accessible via speech
                                  MELATONIN


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                              Bill McGarry (Moderator)
                              (203) 337-1518



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Subject: Screen Readers and LAN access via MSDOS Kermit
From: grday@afterlife.ncsc.mil (Gary Day)
Organization: The Great Beyond

I have a True Blue IBM AT and a 3COM 3C505 LAN adapter. I am
running MSDOS 5.0 and FTP SOFTWARE Inc. PCTCP PLUS Version 2.10 and
Computer Conversations "Enhanced PC Talking Program" Version 4.0.
I have been trying to use MSDOS Kermit Version 3.11 together with
the 3C505 packet driver to access the TCP/IP network, but as soon
as I enable the screen reader, the system locks up. My LAN adapter
is using interrupt 5 and my 3C505 installation command looks like:

3c505 0x60 5 0x300 0xcc00


I have all of the appropriate "SET TCP/IP" commands and Kermit lets
me communicate with no problems as long as I don't enable my screen
reader.

I am using ANSI.SYS without the extended keyboard control option.
I have tried Kermit with the SET KEY OFF in effect, but this
doesn't seem to help, although the problem still appears to be a
keyboard interrupt conflict.  When the screen reader is enabled,
the BIOS keeps trapping button pushes until the type ahead buffer
is full, and then it just beeps at me.

I have found that using interrupt 14 via the tnglass '-e' option
and the MSKermit SET PORT BIOS1 option, works in harmony with the
screen reader, and allows me to make a telnet connection to a UNIX
system with no problem, but I would like to know how to resolve the
interrupt conflict that arises when I use the packet driver
approach.  Does anyone have any suggestions for me?

Thanks in advance,

Gary R. Day  (grday@afterlife.ncsc.mil)




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Subject: manuals in braille
From: pm@sun5.iaee.tuwien.ac.at (Peter Mayer)
Organization: Technical University Vienna, Austria

Hi, I am looking for sources of DOS manuals in braille or file form for the
following programs:

DOS 5.0, Word 5.5, FoxPro 2.0,Lotus 123

in german or english language.

Anyone who can help?

Regards, Peter.

--
---
Dipl.-Ing. Peter Mayer             fortec -  Rehabilitation Engineering Group
Institute for Electronics                   University of Technology - Vienna
Gusshausstrasse 27/359/B                     Email: pm@sun5.iaee.tuwien.ac.at




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Subject: Re: Request For Information
From: jchamber@apache.dtcc.edu (Joe Chamberlain)
Organization: Delaware Technical & Community College

>Pars Plenitis?  Also, any doctors/hospitals in the Philadelphia
>are (or any of the Eastern states) who treat this disease.
>I am aware of one hospital (Wills Eye) and one doctor (Lucier)
>in the Philadelphia area, but want to explore further.  Any information

        The eye clinic at John Hopkins in Baltimore was rated in the top
ten in the country by U.S.News & World Report.  They received a higher
rating than Wills Eye even though they both were in the top ten.






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Subject: Wordperfect 6.0
From: kswheat@uswnvg.com (Scott Wheat)
Organization: U S WEST NewVector Group, Inc.


Hi all,

Has anyone tried using Wordperfect 6.0 with speach yet?  Does it still work
as well as WP5.1 (accept for graphics mode of course)?

Scott.





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Subject: grade 3 braille
From: dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil (Jude DaShiell)

when you have to write like a bat out of hell and you
don't have alot of paper to do it on, grade 3 braille is
the way to go.  an analogy is to pitman shorthand though
for the braille user.

<dashiell@nadc.nadc.navy.mil>
j. DaShiell
Naval Air Warfare Center
Aircraft Division Warminster
Street and Jacksonville Roads
Warminster, PA   18974-5000
(215)-441-2229




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Subject: BLINK HELP
From: nels_jo@pts.mot.com (JOHN NELSON)
Organization: Paging and Wireless Data Group


Hello,

I have been somewhat of a lurker on this bbs; I have a question to
ask of those out there. I am a sighted male married to a blind
woman now for 8 years, our relationship has spanned nearly 14 years
however. Be that as it may my wife is a public school teacher with
her Masters degree. Since I have known her she has applied for
three separate jobs within the same county and all three times
without exception she has met with obstacles and has not been
hired. The last time was yesterday when she applied for a position
at another middle school where her former principal had moved to,
who incidently did not hire her at her current school.

She was placed at her school by the school board administration
after a high school principal flatly refused to hire her because of
her blindness.  Now what bothers me is that this most current
rejection was done by a principal up until now my wife thought was
a fair administator. She believes she was not hired because of her
blindness, and correctly so based on the principal's assistant who
stated so confidentially to my wife.  My wife was in depression
last night stating that "it is always the same" and "will never
change", with regards to peoples prejudices. I support my wife 110%
and tell her what I believe to be all the right things. She is the
mother of my two children, my companion and mate. Problem is what
can/should I be saying to support her when this kind of thing
continues to happen. It gets real difficult to make positive
statements about humanity as it exists.

Furthermore, from my point I want to call up the this SOB principal
at the "public trough" and tell him how displeased I am with the
manner in which my tax dollars are spent to support people who
promote this type of prejudice.  So I guess I have two questions.
They are how do I discuss and support this best with my wife and
should I contact this principal to let him know that some people
are aware of "his game". The later is for my relief only, my wife
would probably say don't bother.

Any  thoughts?
-JLN




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Subject: VOX documentation
From: frongill@cs.unibo.it (Stefano Frongillo)

[Note from Bill McGarry -- this is part of the documentation of
the Voice Recognition Project that Stefano is working on.  Within
the next few weeks, I will get the actual software and make it
available via anonymous ftp and from my BBS.]

---------------------------------------------------------------------
        VOX - Voice Recognition Project

        Author   : Stefano Frongillo (frongill@cs.unibo.it)
        Address  : via Fermi,10 - 40055 Castenaso (BO) - ITALIA
        Target   : easy voice recognition using PC
        Required : Sound Blaster Pro
        Startdate: Feb 1993
        Revised  : 15 Jul 93 (english support)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Introduction
------------
This VR project is a my own experiment on recognizing speeched
voice, based on a very simple idea: matching voice waveform with a
collect of basic waveforms and attempt to recognize it by means of
their differences. Developing the project I've take care of two
questions: first, the resulting library must be not too large and
not expensive in term of both memory used and complexity, second
the libray must be "easy to use" like a blackbox. All the software
was developed for the Sound Blaster Pro, because the Pro version
have a built-in sampler (the primary devices we need). As result
I've obtained a collect of few routines that can be used as easy
way to implement voice based systems.  The system is not perfect
(remember that is only a project) but I think it is enough good to
solve most common problems.

What can I do with the VOX system?
----------------------------------
Using VOX system you can collect some words in a vox-base, and use
them like a menu to control your program, the only differences is
that the selection is made via voice command, not via mouse or
keyboard. So, if you have to do a program that deal with files
(this is an example), you can collect the words 'file', 'edit',
'option' in a vox-base named 'menu_bar' (this define the possible
selections at this time), then, you can invoke a VOX routine that
analyze what do you say at the microphone and return a number
identifying the selection you have made by speaking. Then, if in
the 'file' menu you can have 'load', 'save', ecc. you can collect
this word in another vox-base named 'filemenu' and invoke VOX with
the base 'filemenu'. And so on.

How can I do that?
------------------
Simply, use the routine LoadVoxBase() to load a previously
generated vox-base, then use the function GoVox() to get the number
of the voice-selected word. If you use several vox-base you need of
different LoadVoxBase() calls. The system must be initialized by
calling InitVox() before any other VOX routine, and you must call
DeInitVox() when closing the system. Because VOX use the standard
CT-VOICE drivers from Creative Labs, you must call the function
SbInit() or SbFastInit() provided by my SBFX library to load the
driver and setup the card before calling InitVox(), you must also
call SbExit() after DeInitVox() for a correct shutdown.

Building a vox-base:
--------------------
Each word you want to include in a vox-base must be sampled in a
certain number of copies (4, 6, 8 or more). These samples are
analyzed by VOX to extract the tipical parameters of the word. A
vox-base collect not the words, but only their tipical parameters
(this reduce also the size of a vox-base).  To build a vox-base you
can use the VOX routine named MakeVoxBase(), specifying the names
of each word and the samples filename for each word. A more easy
way to do that is using the VOXTOOL provided with the package.
VOXTOOL is a complete tool to build and test any vox-base,
developed by using the VOX library.  Oviously, each vox-base is
user dependent. I you want different users you must use different
vox-basis.

The program VOXTOOL
-------------------
This program is the better way to design your vox-base to include
in your voice application. After reading precedent paragraphs use
VOXTOOL is not hard.  Please note that for a first time user I've
included in VOXTOOL three little demo-application that can be used
for the training. These are: a drawing program, a virtual keyboard,
a phone dialer. I've included also the prototype of two vox-base:
VOXBASE.B and VOXNUM.B. Use these to build your own vox-base and
training with VOXTOOL.

Shareware
---------
The entire VOX package is shareware and can be freely distribuited,
but only in the original form: don't modify or remove any file!  If
you found usefull the VOX system, you can sendme a greeting of $15
(USD): I'll thank you.

Problems
--------
For any questions, you can contact me via e-mail. Please tell me if you find
VOX usefull, useless or bug'ed.




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Subject: CD-ROMs accessible via speech
From: jason@rnib.demon.co.uk (Jason Arthurs)
Organization: R.N.I.B.

I am trying to compile a list of CD-ROM discs known to be being used in
conjunction with speech. I saw a posting briefly a couple of weeks ago of
users exchanging lists of CDs that worked with speech but unfortunately
my mail software expired them whilst I was away from the office.

I'd appreciate it if anyone could either repost these or simply give any
list of discs they are using with speech.

Many thanks,
Jason.
--
+

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-------+
I Regards,       This message represents personal views and are not the views I
I Jason Arthurs, necessarily endorsed by the R.N.I.B.                         I
+

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Subject: MELATONIN
From: NYEDA@CNSVAX.UWEC.EDU (David Nye)

[Note from Bill McGarry - this is from the Fibrom-L mailing list]

>I saw a blurb in a 2 week old NY Times about doctors in Israel finding
>the hormone Melatonin to be useful in treating insomniacs.  Would that
>be of any use for FMS?  Has levels of this hormone been tested in FMS
>patients?

Melatonin seems to synchronize the sleep/wake cycle with the external
environment.  It has been known for many years that it is helpful in
certain kinds of insomnia related to circadian rhythm disturbances.  I
read an interesting case report about its use in restoring normal sleep
to a congenitally blind man who did not have any sort of regular
sleep/wake cycle.  I'd expect that it would be helpful in treatment of
FMS only in patients who also have a circadian rhythm disturbance.  The
other problem is that it is not commercially available.

David Nye
nyeda@uwec.edu
=========================================================================




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                 End of Issue # 982 of the Blind News Digest

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