Category: accessible Devices
Hey all. So earlier today, in a peak of boredom, I cleaned out my junk closet and, to my great surprise, found an old Type 'n Speak notetaker I didn't even remember I had. I also found its charger and am currently charging it. Much to my surprise the patient...er I mean device, is alive and kicking. My questions, however, regard transfering stuff to and from it. I have the necessary cables. Does anyone know of a relatively hastle-free method of transferring files from my Windows XP computer to the TNS? The manual is extremely vague as to what programs I'd need for such a task, but I'd really love to get this baby back up and running if possible. I really miss being able to play the old Basic games that used to keep me so endlessly entertained during class in high-school...
Thanks in advance.
Best, Albano.
Hyper Terminal will do it. I haven't used my Braille Lite in ages, either. Maybe I should see if I can get it up and running too. But that's what I always used when I wanted to transfer files. Unfortunately, I don't remember off the top of my head which parameters you need to change in the status menu. Maybe someone else remembers?
I did some further research and found out that, since the TNS is running a September 2000 revision, WinDisc should work with it. I'm gonna try it tomorrow and see what I get. Fingers crossed..
I hope you have the Win Disk program on your TNS. Don't you have to install it from a disk first? To be honest I totally forgot about that one. If you get it working, post back here and let me know, because if I recall correctly I could never figure it out.
FireAndRain,
You can download windisk from FS web site.
I wish that the tns was still supported by FS.
Well guys, the verdict is in. I got Windisc on my computer, and the devices talked to each other perfectly well...until I tried transfering files. I'm not sure what's happened, but basically the TNS dies as soon as my computer tries to send it a file. When I next turn it on, it's completely scrambled and needs a cold reset and file system initialization. I don't suppose anyone knows of what's wrong or a place I can send it to be fixed? Particularly if FS doesn't support it any more.
Those machines are awesome! Albano, glad you have one that still works. A program like hyper terminal should do what you want, if you can't get a working Windisk. For best results, you should use one of the protocols like xmodem, ymodem, or zmodem for moving a bunch of files. 38400 baud, no parity, 8 databits, one stop bit, hardware flow-control should work.
I'll try HyperTerminal, but I'm wondering whether my device works as well as I thought. I just tried to turn it on after leaving it off power for a while, and the most that happens is that it turns on, makes a strangled gargling noise, and turns back off. The only way to make it respond again is a cold reset, after which it works well until the next time I leave it off for more than five minutes. The same exact thing happens when I try sending a file to it. IT crashes, then refuses to turn back on unless I cold reset it and initialize its file system.
I don't know if this will work with a blind-specific device like a Type 'N' Speak but I've done it to someone's Palm Pilot, iPAQ and other similar devices. Dating myself here to the early 2000s ... but the same strategy works for the PAC Mate even.
OK so all these devices run their OS from ROM. So what you need to do is flash update the device. I assume yours does not have an Update On Demand feature, but I bet you can find something on the FS Downloads catacombs if you are willing to do some general sniffing around. You can then download the installer or the packages, and if there is a non-pc way to get the file onto the drive, maybe I think I remember some things had disk drives? Certainly most had flash card slots. Anyway you get it onto that media, and run the flash utility to reinstall the OS, and if there are options to obliterate / clean / replace / destroy data accept them all. Just a guess: something got corrupted in the firmware? SShooting in the dark a bit here but some of the Palm Pilots used to poop out like that and if you re-flashed them they were fine. Means you lose everything that's on it, but if you already did a cold reset you lost everything anyway.
For most PDAs that I know of, a cold reset or hard reset basically copies an image of the firmware that it has backed up someplace over your ROM and then reinitializes everything. That's why cold resets take 2 to 5 minutes sometimes depending on what you're resetting and how much stuff you had on there. I'm also guessing that if the manufacturer doesn't support it anymore, from 2000, well, you'll find forums online with dedicated occult users who love the things. Palm pilots aren't supported anymore, and they were pretty spotty in a lot of areas, but there's people still trying to keep them alive for old times' sake. So I bet the Type 'N' Speak has said followers someplace, but not most of this population who was still learning to keep their pants dry when the device came out.
I'm assuming it came out before 2000 - I think mid 90s? Anyway pretty much any device can be flashed if you have media, a utility for flashing it, and a bin or library or pkg or whatever they use to actually create the image on the ROM.
Yeah, I hear that. That's actually what I wanted to do, get the firmware update onto the device so I can just do a clean install. Unfortunately a PC is, as of now, the only way for me to do that. I have no Blazie disc drive.
eBay? you said it was a Blazie Disk Drive.Then you actually have to find a floppy.
Success! Using HyperTerminal, I was able to transfer the latest revision of the TNS firmware to the device. I also managed to copy over some of my games of old. However, if the unit is unplugged and turned off, even for a minute, it still seems to crash spectacularly. Still not sure what's causing that.
At post 7, thanks for the info. Now I think I'll see what I can do for my Braille Lite. I hope it works, because those games were really fun.
Post12: Did you run the firmware? Seen plenty of Palm Pilots and Windows Mobiles where people would copy the bin or rom file to the root like we said but then never execute it. I don't know how you execute this for a blind device like this but possibly it's similar to everyone else's method. The PAC mate was: just take your device, find the reset button usually placed out of the way so you won't accidentally hit it and poke that button with a pin or even a stylus. You probably need more instructions than that from some real users of the specific device, but anyway you have to send the command to your device to flash. Not good enough to put your firmware file on the root of the device.
The way the TNS works is, it's got a Ram fold and a Flash folder, and the update is an external program that you stick in either of the folders and then run it. However the update was very vague about what it did. I know it cleared out all data, but idk if it completely reset the rom memory too.
I used a braille n speak back in high school, and I loved all those basic games. I even wrote a few of my own at one time.
Best of luck. I wish my braille n speak still worked, so if anyone actually does know where you could get one repaired, I'd be interested to hear.
So, I've come to realize that my TNS's problem is in RAM. Every time I turn off, that's what gets scrambled. The good news is, flash is unaffected, so I can afford to keep re-initializing the file system and still have all my games. I just have to make sure all my save data or what have you is in flash before turning the unit off. Still, a pity FS doesn't support these devices more, I'd be quite tempted to send it off to be repaired.
And there's no modern message boards equivalent of alt.devices.TypeNSpeak or something? In the Usenet days you could always find a somebody out there who could repair a old device. Knew someone in the mid 90s who found a guy willing to repair a 1985 Amiga, so I'd guess you could find a shade-tree mechanic hobbyist who has cannibalized spare parts and could do it.
I did a no no. since the braille display was half shot from droppage, i thru out my braillelite and charger in the trash (before i knew you weren't suppose to do that) ages ago. I had all the files backed up. i didnt know 'bout games. it was a braille lite 18. Forget now what else was wrong with it, but I think something was.