Re: Feeding audio signals into phone lines

[nobody@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Dave Houston)]

Way back in Windows 3.1 days I wrote some software that used the
text-to-speech software that came bundled with the 16-bit SoundBlaster
soundcards as well as another low cost ($25 per licensee) commercial
text-to-speech package which had excellent voice quality. The software was
intended for people like you with speech problems. The users were a mix of
those with CP, ALS and other maladies that caused speech problems.

Initially, I wrote it to use a direct connection to an internal speakerphone
modem because the sound was very clean that way but I got feedback from
several users that they preferred to use it with an external speakerphone
modem in front of a PC speaker because that sounded more natural with the
normal background sounds. Creative stopped bundling their TTS software and
the other company got gobbled up by Lernout & Hausbie and disappeared along
with them.

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lernout_&_Hauspie

My software included home automation functions and sold for $180, including
the TTS license, but is no longer available.

There are numerous speakerphone modems available but I don't know how many
of them have DOS drivers. These days most of the external ones have USB
connections and expect Windows.

If you can find a speakerphone modem with a serial interface and DOS
drivers, it is, by far, the easiest way to accomplish what you need.

You probably already know that the commercial companies selling this type of
equipment have exhorbitant prices (despite being subsidized by the
government).

I won't do the searching for you but, if you find some speakerphone modems,
I'll look at them to see whether they will work for you.

BTW, I'm not sure anything like it is still available but one young man with
CP who used my software had a very large (baseball sized) trackball that he
used for a mouse in Windows.

Bill@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Bill Geluso) wrote:

>I don't know if this is the proper newsgroup in which to post this
>question.  If it isn't, would you please advise me of a more
>appropriate newsgroup.
>
>Anyway, my question is:  What is the simplest (and least expensive)
>way to feed an audio signal into a telephone line?
>
>My specific application is as follows:  My speech is next to
>impossible to understand due to cerebral palsy.  Therefore, I often
>use a speech synthesizer to communicate with people, including
>people over the phone.  Currently, to "speak" over the phone, I
>depend on the microphone in a conference phone to pick-up the sound
>waves coming from the speaker in my speech synthesizer.  While this
>configuration works, the quality of the sound that gets transmitted
>over the phone line is less than satisfactory.  This is why I am
>seeking a direct way to input an audio signal into a phone line.
>
>When making suggestions on how to accomplish what I want, please
>keep in mind that I don't use a Windows computer with a sound card.
>I still use a DOS computer, mostly because I can't/don't like using
>a mouse.
>
>I have a question about one possible solution to my problem:  My DOS
>computer has an internal modem that has an on-board speaker, which I
>can use to hear the audio output from the phone line very clearly.
>Is there an internal modem that has some sort of input jacks?
>
>I look forward to your answers and suggestions.
>
>Bill Geluso