Re: [orca-list] You know you're old when ... (was Re: Proposal: Remove the emacspeak suppport)

[Alex Midence <alex midence gmail com>]

This is hillarious!  You know, I used to have a Keynote gold pc
internal synth I was running back in 93/94 that was used by something
called Master touch for Dos.  Anyway, every once in a while, it'd
start chirping at you for no reason.  Only way you could fix it was to
pound your desk twice on the right and once on the left.  It'd start
talking just right after that.  I don't think that was universal, just
me.  The guy that installed it probably didn't put it in my machine
right  and this was how I worked around it.  I'm sure people thought I
was nuts for spontaneously whacking my desk scientifically this way.
Probably thought I needed to take some medication for it, I'm sure.
That's really funny that you had that trouble with the Dectalk.  Back
then, we all salivated for them.  I'm getting a kick out of knowing
that they *all* had that particular snafu.

Alex M



On 1/4/12, Joanmarie Diggs <jdiggs igalia com> wrote:
> Hey Robert.
>
> On Wed, 2012-01-04 at 19:26 -0800, Robert Cole wrote:
> > +1 I have never used a hardware synthesizer in my entire life, that I
> > can remember. I didn't even know what one was until just recently. :)
>
> Ouch! Just for that you must read my silly tale of tech.
>
> About... I dunno 16 or 17 years ago, I did an internship at the
> Massachusetts Commission for the Blind in the Adaptive Technology
> Program. Having been trained and all, I began going out in the field.
> One day I was at this consumer's home trying to re-set up an old
> DECTalk. And by old I mean it was old then. Nothing tiny like a DECTalk
> Express. Think of two thin portable scanners on top of one another.
> Seriously.
>
> BTW, these were in the days when JAWS 2 was current, and one fought with
> interrupts and other silly crap in Windows 95. I had fought the good
> fight, but no luck. For the life of me, I just couldn't get it talking.
> So I called my supervisor and explained the situation. After walking me
> through some basics:
>
> Joe: Ok, I want you to pick the DECTalk up, lifting only its left side.
> Me: Huh?
> Joe: I want you to pick the DECTalk up, lifting only its left side.
> Me: (uncertainly) Yessir.
> Joe: Good, now drop it.
> Me: Sir?
> Joe: Drop it.
> Me: (uncertainly) Yessir. <pause> Oh my god it's talking!
>
> I kid thee not. Turned out the devices were notorious for some sort of
> bad connection.
>
> Say what you will about Assistive Technology today, but I have not had
> to "fix" anything by dropping it in quite some time.
>
> Take care, kiddo. <grins>
> --joanie
>
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