Pretty good week

From: Frank McConnell <fmc_at_reanimators.org>
Date: Fri Feb 27 22:20:50 1998

"John R. Keys Jr." <jrkeys_at_concentric.net> wrote:
> My best find was free card called a SYNPHONIX Electronic Speech
> Articulator model 100 by a company called Artic Technologies with a date
> 1985 on it. Does anyone have any more info on this card such as is for a pc
> or apple, any special software needs ? Thanks and keep on computing -->

Artic Technologies makes (at least I think they are still around, they
were a year or so ago) devices that talk. I've seen them in operation
because one of my co-workers is blind and needs that sort of thing to
use her computer.

That said, I think one of the devices she has is an ISA card with the
SYNPHONIX legend on it. It has an ISA back plate with a headphone
jack and (I think) a volume control knob poking through. There is
also a speaker on the card that can make itself heard over the fan and
through the case. It's been a while since I've seen this one (she
used it briefly in 1995-1996, I think she keeps it as a spare) and
I've no idea whether they also made any Apple-flavored devices.

Until recently she used a serially-attached talking box, also from
Artic. Now she is using software that can use the sound card in her
PC (it previously used the Artic box but she prefers to not carry
extra bits around).

Regarding software, from what I've seen of the Artic software, it is
copy-protected and uses the Artic talker as a serialized dongle. The
new software (from another company) has a key disk that lets you
install the authorization on the hard disk, sort of like the old Lotus
1-2-3 v2.0 copy protection.

Hope this helps,

-Frank McConnell
Received on Fri Feb 27 1998 - 22:20:50 GMT