SAM

Synthesizer Access Manager

for the Windows® 95 and Windows NT® Workstation 4.0 Operating Systems

 

 

Copyright ©1998:

Dolphin Computer Access, LLC

All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

 

Software License

The software includes computer software, associated media, Braille, cassette or print materials and any electronic documentation. The software is licensed and not sold. The software is protected by copyright laws, international copyright treaties and intellectual property laws. The software is licensed for a single user only unless a site license has been purchased where the number of concurrent users is restricted to that purchased.

ã 1997 Dolphin Oceanic Limited. All rights reserved.

Notice

Hal, Lexis and SAM are trademarks of Dolphin Oceanic Ltd. Windows and Windows NT are registered trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. All other products are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Warranty & Disclaimer

Dolphin warrants that the media on which the software is distributed are free from defects and will replace defective media at no charge. Dolphin gives no warranties with respect to any bugs or errors in the software or to its fitness for a particular purpose. Any liability, consequential or otherwise, will be limited to the amount paid for the software. Please inform us of any bugs or features you may find and we will endeavor to rectify them.

N.B.

Care of your compact disc

 

Table Of Contents

1 Introduction *
2 Installing SAM *
2.1 Installing SAM *
2.2 De-installing SAM *
3 Configuring SAM *
3.1 Configuring an existing driver *
3.2 Auto-detecting your speech synthesizer *
3.3 Selecting a driver manually *
3.4 Quitting SAM *

 

1 Introduction

SAM (Synthesizer Access Manager) is a Windows 95/NT module that facilitates the sharing of your speech synthesizer with other SAM-compatible access products, such as Hal screen reader and Lexis text reader system.

SAM has been developed because with the increasing number of talking access products on the market, users can now encounter problems when they want to use their screen reader in conjunction with other "talking" products, such as Lexis.

SAM resolves these problems by automatically and intelligently deciding which access product has the right to pass information to the synthesizer. This allows users to run all their SAM-compatible speech applications seamlessly.

SAM incorporates an SSIL interface that allows SAM-compatible applications to use existing 16-bit SSIL drivers (until 32-bit SAM drivers become available). However, not all SSIL drivers will work under Windows NT. (Please refer to section 3 for further details.)

This guide tells you everything you need to know in order to install and configure SAM.

 

2 Installing SAM

This section tells you how to install SAM. If you purchased an Orion computer with Lexis or Hal, there is no need for you to read this section, SAM will have been set up for you. If you have purchased Lexis or Hal on CD-ROM, there is also no need for you to read this section.

2.1 Installing SAM

To run SAM you need:

  • An IBM PC compatible computer with a 486DX processor (running at 33 MHz or faster). (A Pentium processor is recommended).
  • 8 MB of RAM. (16 MB of RAM recommended for the Windows NT version).
  • A SAM or SSIL compatible speech synthesizer.
  • Windows 95 or Windows NT Workstation 4.0.

These recommendations will ensure that Windows runs optimally.

Before installing SAM you must install your speech synthesizer according to the instructions supplied by the manufacturer. You must also load any appropriate device drivers associated with your speech synthesizer. Failure to configure your speech synthesizer properly may result in your machine running excessively slowly, or locking up altogether with no speech output when SAM-compatible applications are run. (Please consult your speech synthesizer's manual for further details.)

To install SAM, first of all turn on your computer and start Windows in the usual way.

When Windows has loaded, insert your SAM Master disk in drive A, then do the following:

  • Press CONTROL+ESCAPE to bring up the Windows Start menu.
  • Press R to select the option "Run…".
  • Finally, type A:\SETUP and press ENTER to start the SAM installation program.

After the installation program has copied the necessary files you will be prompted to reboot your computer.

2.2 De-installing SAM

To de-install SAM choose the "Uninstall SAM" option from the "Dolphin SAM" group in the Start menu.

Warning: You should not normally want to de-install SAM. If you do, your SAM-compatible applications, such as Hal and Lexis, will stop working.

 

3 Configuring SAM

This section tells you how to configure SAM if for instance you want to use a different synthesizer with your SAM-compatible applications, or you want to attach your synthesizer to a different serial port.

Ø To configure SAM:

  • From Lexis or Hal select the "SAM Setup" button. (This is the preferred method of setting up SAM.)

If you do not have Lexis or Hal:

  • From the Windows Start menu choose "Programs" then "Dolphin SAM".
  • Highlight the "Configure SAM" icon and then press ENTER.

The "SAM Configuration" dialog box will then be displayed. If SAM is not already running SAM will be started without loading any synthesizer drivers. This will give you a chance to disable any synthesizer drivers which may be causing problems on your machine. (Especially SSIL drivers.)

Any SSIL driver that requires a DOS-based driver to be loaded, or that access the PC’s hardware directly, will not work under Windows NT. Contact your synthesizer’s manufacturer for more information on compatibility with Windows NT.

The SAM configuration dialog box lists all the available SAM drivers. Each driver displays a "units" number, which is the number of currently available speech synthesizers of that particular type.

3.1 Configuring an existing driver

To configure an existing driver, simply highlight it and press ENTER. This will launch the configuration dialog box for the selected driver.

Next, change your driver settings, e.g. selecting a different serial port.

When you have done that, select the "OK, change now" button and SAM will then display a dialog box. Press ENTER and SAM will then unload all drivers.

Now you can physically change any synthesizer hardware you may have or attach your existing synthesizer to a different serial port.

Press ENTER again and SAM will reload the drivers (with possibly different configurations).

Warning: Some SSIL drivers don't work if you load then, unload them and then reload them again in the same Windows session. Also, changing your speech synthesizer whilst Windows is running may in some cases cause damage to your PC/speech synthesizer. It is recommended that you select the option "OK, Change when SAM is restarted" and then power down your PC before changing synthesizer hardware.

3.2 Auto-detecting your speech synthesizer

If there are no speech synthesizer "units" configured in the "SAM Configuration" dialog box then the quickest way to configure SAM is to select the "Detect All Synthesizers Now" button. If you select this button, SAM asks each driver to perform automatic synthesizer detection. (SAM will also do this automatically if after starting up there are no synthesizers currently configured.)

Under Windows 95 SAM will automatically detect the following speech synthesizers:

  • A Dolphin Apollo 2, Juno or Gemini
  • A Dolphin PC2 ISA card
  • A DECtalk Express
  • A Keynote Gold

Under Windows NT SAM will automatically detect the following speech synthesizers:

If your speech synthesizer is not automatically detected by SAM, you can select the driver SAM uses manually by following the instructions below.

3.3 Selecting a driver manually

To select a driver manually, simply select the "SAM to SSIL interface" option in the "SAM Configuration" dialog box and press ENTER.

Choose the SSIL driver you wish to use and press ENTER.

3.4 Quitting SAM

Ø To quit SAM:

  • From the Windows Start menu choose "Programs" then "Dolphin SAM".
  • Highlight the "Quit SAM" icon and then press ENTER.