I'm not sure about porting espeak to dos, I'd be inclined to believe it
would take a heck of a lot of work if it's even possible, since for the
most part, it depends on linux api calls and kernel functions to do most
of it's work. Not to say it couldn't be done, but it wuld be a quite
different product once it was made dos compatible.
To answer your question though, there are no dos screen readers that I'm
aware of that use software synthesizers, with the exception of one I
can't remember the name of that used the soundblaster for output, it's
possible that could be made to use the host system soundblaster
emulation if you're running in a virtual machine, but it isn't likely to
work on straight dos.
On the other hand, I know that provox is free to use, and obtaining a
used speech synthesizer that it handles shouldn't be too much of an
issue, since most folks don't use said devices anymore (with the
exception of a few odd folks like myself), so getting an external
synthesizer that works with provox shouldn't be a major hurtle. That
assumes of course you're using dos on bare metal. If you're using it in
a virtual machine, you may be able to leverage the host operating system
screen reader, but I've not tried that.
For what it's worth, I did ask about getting provox added to the freedos
distribution, and was told that since it's written in a86, (an assembler
that was not a free one), it isn't likely it will be added to the
distribution. I was told that if I could port it to masm/tasm/something
else that is free, it might be included. Odd that, since masm/tasm
aren't shareware, but commercial products, although I believe tasm
version 1.0 is free for use these days.
I don't know enough assembly language to make this happen though, so it
isn't likely the task will get done without additional assistance.
Hope this helps.
On 10/14/2024 4:01 AM, Mike Coulombe via Freedos-user wrote:
Hi, if this isn't the correct list for this question please let me
know which list I should try. I'm visually impaired and would like to
use free dos. Has any work been done on including a screen reader with
software speech? Dos was my main operating system for several years. I
don't have a hardware speech synthesizer anymore, but do still have my
dos screen readers. If software speech could be added to free dos
there are at least two dos screen readers I know of that have been
released as freeware. Or maybe someone has already created a talking
boot disk of free dos? If any programmers are on this list I wonder if
the free software speech called e-speak could be ported to dos? Thanks
in advance for any help.
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