Unfortunately there's minimal speaker or sound circuitry in the Dana. We have emphasised to Alphasmart how great it would be if there was TTS available for it. Their best thought at present is that someone will do TTS using an external device, but it's less of a priority for them than getting PDA software adapted to the Dana wide screen. And at the moment external TTS devices tend to be old and expensive.

Regards
Ian Litterick
iANSYST Ltd
www.dyslexic.com

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Ian [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
> Sent: 01 October 2003 22:37
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Re: [DIS-FORUM] Alphasmart with voice synthesis?
> 
> 
> Just to support this thread. I think a relatively low-cost 
> portable note-
> taking device with speech output is long overdue. The idea of using a
> lightweight laptop is often the most cost-effective but isn't 
> always the
> most effective strategy. Note-taking at uni is more than 
> taking notes in
> lectures. students need to jot down notes during tutorials, 
> meetings with
> fellow students on the bus, in the library, in the canteen. Imagine
> having to boot up a pen and paper and probably find somewhere 
> to plug in
> every time you need to jot a quick note, date, phone number 
> or scribble
> something onto a time-table, diary, handout, photocopy etc.
> 
> The new Alphasmart Dana uses Palm OS - I wonder if there's 
> any Palm text-
> to-speech engines that might make it possible to develop on this
> platform?
> Ian Francis
> 
> 
> On 30 Sep 2003 at 15:35, Andrew Hodgson wrote:
> 
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> > Hash: SHA1
> >
> >  Hello Clare,
> >
> > Tuesday, September 30, 2003, 1:38:31 PM, you wrote:
> >
> > CD> Andrew,
> >
> > CD> Can you give me more info about the cheaper speech only 
> notetakers made by
> > CD> Artic Technologies and by Robotron?  The student does 
> not use Braille, and
> > CD> to justify the cost of VoiceNote or PAC Mate I will 
> have to be able to
> > CD> confirm that there is no cheaper alternative available 
> to meet his needs.
> >
> >   Right,  in  that  case there are a few options, the note 
> takers from
> >   Robotron  are  no good because they require braille 
> input.  Here are
> >   the ones I have found:
> >
> >   http://www.techno-vision.co.uk/artic_transtype_2000.htm
> >
> >   The Artic transtype is probably the cheapest qwerty 
> speech notetaker
> >   you  will  find,  and  is  somewhat basic now but will do 
> basic word
> >   processing     for     note     taking.     Email    George    at
> >   <[log in to unmask]>  for  the prices, but they 
> were less than
> >   £1000 last time I saw them.
> >
> >   Alternatively there are the following products:
> >     * Voicenote QT
> >     * Pacmate BNS
> >     * QWERTY Elba
> >
> >   These will be more expensive, but will have a larger feature set.
> >
> > Hope this helps,
> > Andrew.
> >
> > - --
> > Best regards,
> >  Andrew Hodgson, Bromyard, Herefordshire, UK.
> >  mailto:[log in to unmask]
> >
> > -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
> > Version: PGP SDK 3.0.2
> >
> > iQA/AwUBP3mUvRvTWk0UTIIuEQJrzwCfSxIXIJN3feWmvDIrEHq/6o2baiYAoN0A
> > 6kvizo4pAoEh9iyY/h4Co8y+
> > =5/Kk
> > -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
> 
> 

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