Category: Geeks r Us
Sorry guys,but I really can't askthis anywhere else. I mean, it'spurely about adaptive tech...
I lost my Vocal-Eyes disk and fucked up the copy in the directory cause I'm a jerk. I knew that GW Micro was charging for it the last time I went there but now they don't even have the demo on their site! So does that mean it's freeware or abandonware or something? Anyway, I have to find another screenreader. JAWS, ASAP and Tiny Talk are all available as freeware but I can only find JAWS. Where are the others? I've only vaguely used asap and hardly ever touched JAWS before 3.3. Which one should I get or is there a good one I'm missing? How do they compare? Would it be easier for me to use JAWS since I'm already using JFW? Does anyone know of an open source dos screenreader or a multiplatform one that might work in something like the Freedos environment? I wanna email the makers of Freedos and see if they'd be interested in making it accessible. But first, I'm gonna tryit with the
JAWS for DOS doesn't have a talking installer but it is good overall; its cursor command are nearly identical to JAWS for Windows.
ASAP is a bit different, it's pretty small and the installer will search internally and externally for synthesizers and start talking if it can. Seems like there was a set of installation switches you could pass to JAWS for DOS to set it up automatically, but I don't remember what they are. I haven't used it since the nineties, and don't even have a hardware synthesizer.
But they do have instructions on how to set it up on the FS web site. Once installed, the manuals in the directory were very complete, especially for the times.
I ran into TinyTalk once when helping someone with a general computer situation, and turned out the older fellow in the house - not the one I was helping - was using it. I ran it enough to use DOS Edit and fix problems with memory management for DOS / Windows 3.1 (yuk) but it seemed really basic.
JAWS had something called Smart Screens, which would allow a lot of things to track and read automatically.
It also had full support for Word Perfect 5 and 6, Lotus and a bunch of other software most of us have forgotten about by now.
It's best effort will be in a 16-bit environment, and that may be the case of all DOS screenreaders. I don't know how much development has gone into these for a very long time.
Hmmm, I never even heard of a talking installation in dos! Now I've gotta try this! I just have to remember to install the Blazer (if I can't use the Braillenote for whatever reason)under the parallel port cause the serial isn't working. Think I'll start with JAWS, since the help menus are so extensive. I've got so much software lying around it's ridiculous. *smile*
Someone really should put up a version of vocal eyes somewhere if it's been abandoned. Whatever I may think of window eyes, vocal eyes was my screen reader for dos of choice.