Hi mMateusz,
I wish to break this down a bit, and correct some misconceptions.
Especially given the potential, along with what others shared about
getting a pie to do what is needful.
see my questions in context.
On Tue, 19 Nov 2024, Mateusz Viste via
Freedos-user wrote:
I had described my setup already a couple of weeks ago I think. I used my BNS
emulator, emubns,
First question, is this emulator something you personally wrote?
If so, is the source code available for others?
If not, how does using this emulator differ from something like speech
dispatcher?
and connected it to a virtual machine running SvarDOS.
Next set of questions.
Connected it how?
For example for those running well anything in a virtual environment,
Linux, mac and so forth, the challenge is setting the virtual serial
port. Did you create a different method for this assignment?
Of importance for me too, is just where is the speech coming from? your
sound card for example?
The
SvarDOS system has a screen reader that outputs speech in the BNS format.
May I have a link to this edition of DOS? Is it using Provox for the
screen reader, or something else?
Again, it is important to remember there is a difference between, in some
environments, between speech output and screen reader software.
Allot of times this is managed by a driver. I can have a synthesizer,
braille and speak, dectalk, little talk, Apollo, and use that same synthesizer with many
different screen readers. Those screen readers provide control over
things like pitch rate, inflection and so forth. Linux screen readers, or
so I am told by some end users, tend to miss those types of controls, or
solidly.
This BNS speech is received by emubns,
Which is what exactly? comparative to espeak, or speech dispatcher, as it
serves as a channel for the virtual synthesizer?
who relays it for actual speech
generation to Piper.
Can you translate this into less technical concepts?
Its why I keep raising Linux comparatives, speech dispatcher, espeak.
There are windows comparatives too.
All this runs virtualized at this moment, so it is
likely not a setup that is desirable for blind people.
I will resist pointing out some considerable confusion by the above
statement, simply asking why you believe this is true?
For example speech in the apple environment is likely provided virtually,
if you mean no separate piece of hardware is attached tot he machine. I
understand there are two screen reader programs that incorporate Piper in
the terminal of the Mac OS system currently.
Orca is, as I understand it, a virtual graphical desktop for Linux that
incorporates speech in the virtual environment.
I believe that nvda and narrator does this in windows.
So, on what are you basing your generalization?
granted I may be missing a step, but still, blanketing all virtual
environments as off the table seems quite a reach.
However, the exact
same result can be obtained by running emubns and Piper on a Raspberry Pi. In
such setup, the DOS system would run on a hardware PC and output speech to
the Raspberry Pi connected via a standard serial cable.
But that assumes several factors that may not be true.
for example that a person can obtain a computer that still has standard
serial ports.
I can, but most say wanting to visit a store, cannot.
same for those running Linux virtually to windows, or wanting to run DOS
virtually, or wanting to use both terminal or command line alongside a
graphical environment.
That is before you touch on pi factors, no keyboard, screen, speech, and
so forth to configure the item. Locating a pi with enough capacity, if I
recall from later posts in this thread being far more costly and far
less simple..but I may not be fully correct here.
In essence the
Raspberry Pi would act as a dumb speech generator. This, I believe, would be
much more user-friendly since no exotic configuration would be required other
than flashing the Raspberry Pi with a suitable image. I plan to prepare such
image, but have yet to find the time to look into this. Not something very
high on my list of priorities since I am almost sure that I would be the only
user of such system, but still something I'd like to get done eventually.
Again, this is a understandable, but unfortunate misconception.
Goodness I spoke of you getting Piper to work with the provox Screen
reader in DOS on a Linux list and several folks jumped right on the
idea.
Please do not measure the interests and capacity of hundreds of millions
by the handful on this list..including myself.
The institute for inclusive design at the Ontario college of art and
design in Toronto Might jump on this door alone...and that is a single
school in a single city.
>
I believe you use a hardware DECTalk speech generator to make your DOS talk.
Not exactly. I use or can use a reading edge, which is a talking OCR
scanner built by Xerox that includes the ability to interface with several
screen reader programs. Those screen reader programs, ASAP for example
have drivers written to interface with the reading edge.
currently, I am using an internal dectalk PC sound card, it is possible to
copy speech to that card, much the way one can copy text to a port,
including a printer port.
however again,I have access to several screen reading programs, with
drivers, that control how the synthesizer behaves.
Those are separate concepts though, which is why I asked the questions I
did above.
To make it simpler to understand, just imagine that instead of this DECTalk
device there is a Raspberry Pi box. The RPi would run Linux, emubns and
piper, but all this would be hidden from "normal" users, who would consider
the Raspberry as a black box that talks when connected to a DOS PC.
Again, you are understandably due to lack of exposure leaving out the
millions using windows with virtual speech, the apple system on any
number of devices using virtual speech, and apparently users in Linux
having virtual access as well.
None of those millions are using hardware at all.
Do my questions make sense?
Thanks,
Karen
> > Mateusz
On 19/11/2024 06:18, Karen Lewellen wrote:
Hi Mateusz,
Finally had a moment to check out your piper in DOS sample.
If I am forthright, that was frankly stunning.
granted, I imagine many factors impacted that sound quality, but I have
questions about your process, both how it differs because Piper is
in Linux <what does that mean exactly?> and what you used for the output
for that sample, sound card for example.
There is a discussion of Piper for Linux accessibility, one thing
profoundly missing, speaking personally, is the ease of adjusting basic
things like rate, pitch, inflection, my understanding from command line
Linux users is that those options are not solid. certainly not like the
many DOS screen reader packages.
before I get exacted about a possible safe for my use tts, I am interested
in your process?
Thanks,
Karen
On Wed, 16 Oct 2024, Mateusz Viste via Freedos-user wrote:
> On 15/10/2024 17:12, Karen Lewellen via Freedos-user wrote:
> > Other factor speaking personally with espeak is the largely poor
> > speech
> > quality.
>
> I experimented a bit with emubns today. Ended up using "piper" instead
> of espeak. The speech quality is outstanding now, almost lifelike. I was
> able to install SvarDOS using only my ears and fingers and with the
> natural voice generated by Piper it was almost a pleasant experience.
> Piper is Linux-only, but that's not an issue in the context of running
> emubns as a DOS-compatible hardware synthesizer on a Raspberry Pi.
>
> Another problem is that Provox pronounces every period, comma, colon and
> parenthesis, which becomes quickly annoying. Perhaps it can be
> configured somehow, I have yet to find out. It's all new to me, I have
> never used a screen reader before.
>
> > I have no idea what the pi would provide speech wise, nor the cost
> > factor.
>
> With piper integration the speech quality is excellent. The cost factor
> is the cost of a Raspberry Pi 3 device and a serial-to-USB cable. That
> is, in theory, because I did not test it on real hardware yet.
>
> Mateusz
>
>
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