mac os7 with outspoken

Category: Geeks r Us

Post 1 by joshknnd1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Saturday, 15-Feb-2014 23:47:01

hi

here is a link to a forum that has a download link for a windows compatible mac os7 emulator with the outspoken screen reader. http://forum.audiogames.net/viewtopic.php?id=11476

if download link expires let me know I'll post another... but anyway how do I use outspoken for mac? I am using a laptop and when I press fn j for numpad 1 outspoken says find. what are other commands? pressing other things just makes the mac os7 emulator from the mid 1990s beep.

Post 2 by joshknnd1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Sunday, 16-Feb-2014 17:54:58

I made a little progress. the grav key acts like command and I was able to get into the menus with grav 6. maybe I need a full keyboard though. I'll try plugging one in and see how it works.

Post 3 by hardyboy09 (I'm going for the prolific poster awards!) on Monday, 17-Feb-2014 5:43:08

Confused, what is this?

Post 4 by joshknnd1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Monday, 17-Feb-2014 17:48:46

I find it is easier if I plug in and use a full keyboard with a numpad into usb.

Post 5 by joshknnd1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Monday, 17-Feb-2014 17:51:24

this is mac os7 with the outspoken screen reader. mac os7 is an operating system for apple computers back in 1995 or so. outspoken was a screen reader made by alva, it was the very first screen readers for the graphical user interface. basilisk lets you make your windows xp windows7 or windows8 computer pretend to be an old apple computer.

Post 6 by joshknnd1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Monday, 17-Feb-2014 17:52:41

outspoken has voices such as fred, bells, bubbles, cellos, pipe organ, albert, bruce, zarvox, and many more.

Post 7 by Imprecator (The Zone's Spelling Nazi) on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2014 11:01:19

I used to love to fuck around with the very first outspoken voices, before they had more than one. I would put the pitch up all the way and it would sound like it was whining.

Post 8 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2014 12:17:44

I never had blind access to macs back then, but I was a front line tech. Mac OS 7 was terrible for networking, hooking up to the Internet, and getting Netscape installed properly plus all the plugins. I have no idea if Outspoken would have worked with Netscape or not.
Why anyone would want this I don't know. It's like asking for the first Windows 95 A release where lots of components were missing. Worse, in fact, because they had no Dial-up Networking of any sort. Get this: You were supposed to download Open Transport 1.1.1 from Apple's site, except of course you needed to first download the Global Village patch for your modem, except of course you can't do that from a computer with Internet access. And you couldn't in those days download onto a Windows PC and put this stuff on disks and expect a Mac to read them.
My gods and gargoyles what a nightmare all this was from an IT perspective, even on LAN setups getting those things to talk to each other. A bit like people wanting to do pPP in DOS, to be honest.
People who ran Macs back then were music producers and graphics people, plus I guess educators and their sheeple, erm I means students.
I'd probably pay money not to have to set that up for people. Not from an Internet or networking standpoint, at least.

Post 9 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2014 12:23:02

* I meant you couldn't do those downloads with a computer that had no Internet access on it yet. Even Windows 95 out of the box had Dial-up networking so we could set people up with instructions and give them an FTP location to go directly to the site to get Netscape. It even had Internet Explorer Version 1 if you deigned to use it.
No, System 7 was terrible. Tons of System 11 / bomb errors, systems slowing down and you had to have the user rebuild the desktop all the time. That was sort of a defrag the database move, where Apple marketed you didn't have to defrag the disk, but of course you had to reconstitute the database every once in awhile with Rebuild the Desktop.
I will grant you that System 7 was far cuter than Windows 95, but cuteness never got work done.

Post 10 by starfly (99956) on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2014 12:53:37

um.. I personally will pass, :) my mac's mavrics works fine for me for serfing, some note taking and windows7 does the rest for me.

Post 11 by joshknnd1982 (Veteran Zoner) on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2014 14:21:53

I just enjoy playing around with it. it's fun.

Post 12 by LeoGuardian (You mean there is something outside of this room with my computer in it?) on Tuesday, 18-Feb-2014 16:41:53

What did a blind person actually use Mac OS 7 for? I am genuinely curious, because the only people I knew who used it were sighted, and used such programs as Adobe PageMaker and whatever they had for graphics and audio production.
I mean, if your emulator package comes with OpenTransport 1.1.1 and all other added system extensions for networking for your control panels, you could connect up with it.
I guess you could use Claris Works?
I'm curious what you actually did with it.

Post 13 by Imprecator (The Zone's Spelling Nazi) on Monday, 24-Feb-2014 7:21:18

I'm sure Tiffanitsa would want it, as long as she could input text using her typewriter from 1912.

Post 14 by Twinklestar09 (I've now got the bronze prolific poster award! now going for the silver award!) on Monday, 24-Feb-2014 11:33:21

Anyways, that does sound cool and interesting. I will probably check it out myself. Thanks for the link.
I'm not familiar with emulators (or at least how that works). After installing it, do you just go into the program, or does it add it to where it has the list for "shut down", "restart", etc.? And how would I get out of that program or whatever when I want to go back to using Windows XP? Thanks.