RE: Some stories
- From: "Humberto Rodriguez" <sub@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2008 23:02:42 -0500
Laura:
You have brought back memories!
I remember I had a Vert Plus synthetizer way back when. It is probably
still in a box somewhere. I remember it spoke clearly at the time, but it
was s-l-o-w. I don't exactly remember what I used it with. I began using
Jaws around 1989 or 1990, in its DOS 1.0 version. Those were the days when
you could pick up the phone and talk to Ted Henter in Saint Pete. I had
several hardware synthetizers over the years, including I remember, one made
in New Zealand, but don't remember the make. I have used only software
synthetizers lately.
Screen readers have really come a long way, although lately, my VFW 9.0
seems to be getting stuck way too often.
I also began with Arkenstone way before Open Book, but don't remember even
what they used to call their early versions.
Kind Regards,
Bert
-----Original Message-----
From: programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:programmingblind-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of tribble
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 10:04 PM
To: programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Re: Some stories
Hi Andreas -- I don't have a specific story, but back around 1991 I was
using a DOS screen reader Called Vert -- actually the top of the line was
called Vert Plus, which I used at work, and at home I used PersonalVert,
dubbed "the little PerVert" by those who used it.
Anyway, VertPlus used a hardware synth called the Prose card. It was
developed by a Swedish computer scientist who used his own voice to define
the various sounds of speech which were concatenated to form words. The
firmware had many heuristics to make sentences sound natural, but it was not
advanced right then (remember 1991 was still pretty primitive in this area).
But the result of the implementation had some surprises: First, the synth
sounded like it had a Swedish accent, and for that reason I nicknamed the
system "Swen". What was also funny was that the sound of "j" which
doesn't occur in Swedish, sounded like "sh" or "h" or even "k" -- so that
some words, such as ginger, were quite baffling on VertPlus but clear on
PerVert.
Second, on the Prose card, certain phrases were pronounced so that parts of
the syllables were compressed or altered depending on the heuristics. This
led to some bizarre situations in which the synth would read a perfectly
reasonable phrase as if it had profanity embedded in it. This made me think
that the "pervert" title applied more to VertPlus than Vert. *smile*
(Note, there was no profanity actually inserted, but syllables were
compressed so that it could be interpreted that way by someone not used to
the synth.) For that reason I always used headphones! (One phrase I
remember -- an email with the phrase "fudge in cafeteria". I'll let you
figure out the result.)
As for programming, I used this screen reader only to read emails and text
documents and not so much for programming. This because it was not designed
for programming and even for text, the command set in those early screen
readers was quite awkward. I only bought them because I had a catastrophic
problem with my vision, and so lost the ability to read print for some
months. But when my vision returned, I went back to screen magnification.
Now I again have no print vision yet again but wow, have screen readers ever
improved!
Good luck on your dissertation.
Cheers and happy hacking!
--le
----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Stefik" <stefika@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <programmingblind@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 7:54 PM
Subject: Some stories
Hello all,
I have recently completed the first draft of my dissertation, which is
on blind computer programmers and using audio to program. In it, I've
created a special C programming environment, ran a ton of experiments,
and written more than any human would probably want to read.
At the very end of my dissertation, I thought it might be nice to
include a section, a few paragraphs, on some "classically bad audio
interfaces." Does anyone have any stories of interacting with a
program, using Jaws or any other interfaces that use audio, that are
so comically bad that they have you scratching your head?
I would love to hear some stories, if folks wouldn't mind sharing.
(The funnier the better)
Just curious,
Andreas
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