The Linux Emacspeak HOWTO
Jim Van Zandt, jrv@vanzandt.mv.com
v1.1, 2 February 1997
This document describes how a blind user can use Linux with a speech
synthesizer to replace the video display. It describes how to get
Linux running on your own PC, and how to set it up for speech output.
It suggests how to learn about Unix.
1. Introduction
Emacspeak is an Emacs subsystem that allows the user to get feedback
using synthesized speech.
Screen reading programs allow a visually impaired user to get feedback
using synthesized speech. Such programs have been commercially
available for well over a decade. Most of them run on PC's under DOS,
and there are now a few screen-readers for the Windows platform.
However, screen-readers for the UNIX environment have been conspicuous
in their absence.
This means that most visually impaired computer users face the
additional handicap of being DOS-impaired -- a far more serious
problem:-)
Emacspeak is an emacs subsystem that provides basic speech access.
Emacspeak will always have the shortcoming that it will only work
under Emacs. This said, there is very little that cannot be done
inside Emacs, so it's not a real shortcoming:-) Within Emacs, you can
open a "shell window" where run commands and examine their output,
even output which has scrolled out of the window. Emacs provides
special modes for running certain commands. For example, it can parse
error messages printed by a compiler and open a separate edit window
with the cursor at the point of the error. It can also run a debugger
and keep a separate edit window open at the point in the source code
corresponding to the program counter.
Emacspeak does have a significant advantage: since it runs inside
Emacs, a structure-sensitive, fully customizable editor, Emacspeak
often has more context-specific information about what it is speaking
than its commercial counterparts. In this sense, Emacspeak is not a
"screenreader", it is a subsystem that produces speech output. A
traditional screen-reader speaks the content of the screen, leaving it
to the user to interpret the visually laid-out information.
Emacspeak, on the other hand, treats speech as a first-class output
mode; it speaks the information in a manner that is easy to comprehend
when listening.
This initial version provides a basic speech subsystem for Emacs;
using Emacs' power and flexibility, it has proven straightforward to
add modules that customize how things are spoken, e.g. depending on
the major/minor mode of a given buffer. Note that the basic speech
functionality provided by Emacspeak is sufficient to use most Emacs
packages effectively; adding package-specific customizations makes the
interaction much smoother. This is because package-specific
extensions can take advantage of the current context.
This document is limited to the following:
� Linux (not Free BSD)
� The Slackware distribution (not Red Hat, Debian, etc.)
� Speech output only (not Braille - see the Access HOWTO)
� Dectalk synthesizers (Dectalk Express and MultiVoice--not the
Accent, SmarTalk, a sound card, etc.)
� Use of Emacs, with T. V. Raman's Emacspeak package, to drive the
synthesizer.
The use of adaptive technology with Linux, and in particular, using
adaptive technology to make Linux accessible to those who could not
use it otherwise, is covered in the Linux Access HOWTO.
If you would like to help extend this document to cover one or more of
the other alternatives, or point me to a discussion somewhere else,
please contact me.
Emacspeak was written by T. V. Raman raman@adobe.com. Emacspeak has a
Web page at
<http://www.cs.cornell.edu/Info/People/raman/emacspeak/emacspeak.html>.
Computer hardware, Unix user commands, Unix system administration,
Emacs, and Emacspeak are each substantial systems. Attempting to
learn all of them at once is likely to lead to frustration. Instead,
I suggest that the new user go through a sequence of stages, learning
about only one system at a time.
2. Stage 1. DOS with speech
Most blind computer users have speech synthesizers with a screen
reader program like JAWS [``JAWS'']. (References in this format refer
to entries in the "Footnotes and References" section below.) Using
this setup, install and become familiar with some terminal emulator
like Telix [``TELIX''] or Commo [``COMMO''], which are available from
the SimTel archive [``SimTel''] among others.
2.1. Getting Linux on CDROM
If you have or can borrow a CDROM drive, I recommend you get one of
the many good distributions of Linux on that medium. I am most
familiar with disks from InfoMagic [``InfoMagic'']. Another source is
Walnut Creek [``Walnut Creek''] (where the whole idea of inexpensive
CDROMS full of programs from Internet archives got its start).
Distributions other than Slackware are available from Red Hat [``Red
Hat''], Craftwork [``Craftwork''], and Yggdrasil [``Yggdrasil'']. As
a rule, these CDROMS use the "ISO 9660" format, which can be read
under DOS. (They also use the "Rock Ridge extensions" which add extra
files in each directory. Linux uses the extra information to give you
long filenames, both upper and lower case characters in filenames, and
file permissions.)
2.2. Getting Linux by FTP
Another way to get Linux and its documentation is by FTP over the
Internet. Its home site is Walnut Creek [``Walnut Creek'']. It is
also carried by sunsite and many of it mirror sites. Here is a
partial list:
� USA (home site) <ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware>
� UK/Europe
<ftp://src.doc.ic.ac.uk/public/Mirrors/ftp.cdrom.com/pub/linux/slackware-3.1>
� Japan <ftp://ftp.cs.titech.ac.jp/pub/os/linux/slackware>
� Taiwan <ftp://NCTUCCCA.edu.tw/OS/Linux/Slackware>
� Hong Kong <ftp://ftp.cs.cuhk.hk/pub/slackware>
� USA <ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/distributions/slackware>
� USA
<ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/linux/sunsite/distributions/slackware>
More sites are listed in the INFO-SHEET
<ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/INFO-SHEET>or
<ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/linux/sunsite/docs/HOWTO/INFO-
SHEET>. Sunsite can also be reached using a Web browser:
<http://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/welcome.html>.
2.3. Linux Documentation
Read the Linux documentation. I will quote here the file names and
locations on the first disk of InfoMagic's November 1995 "Developer's
Resource" set of five CDROMS, as seen under DOS. Other CDROM sets
should have similar information, though perhaps differently arranged.
There are general guides to the disks in the set in \readme.1st and
\help\whereami.txt. Matt Welsh's step by step guide to installing
Slackware is in \help\quicksta.txt. (This is slightly dated. For
example, you no longer need to decompress the root disks before
writing them out. However, it is still a "must-read".)
More general information is in the Linux "Frequently Asked Questions"
list in \slackwar\docs\linux.faq\linux-fa.asc. Longer descriptions
are in "HOWTO" documents (of which this is one). They are found in
\howto. Note particularly \howto\hardware, which lists which kinds of
hardware are supported by Linux, \howto\meta-faq, which points to
sources of information (that is, a more extensive version of this
paragraph), and \help\index, which is a list of the HOWTO documents
with short descriptions. The Linux installation HOWTO,
\howto\installation, is another version of Matt Welsh's installation
instructions.
One note on reading the documentation. You may run into files with
ASCII highlighting, where character-backspace-character stands for
"bold", and underscore-backspace-character stands for "italics". One
way to handle this is to use the less program, which displays these
sequences in alternate colors. A DOS screenreader can, for example,
search for such highlighted text. A DOS version of less can be
obtained by FTP from the SimTel archive [``SimTel'']. Within the
SimTel collection, look for directory msdos/textutil. For example,
try <ftp://ftp.coast.net/pub/SimTel/msdos/textutil>.
I will suggest four alternatives for learning Emacs commands (see
section [``Learning Emacs'']). The first option is to install Emacs
under DOS and learn it while using the DOS screen reader. Where to
get Emacs for DOS is a "frequently asked question" [``Emacs for
DOS''].
The source code for Emacs (about 10 MB) can be gotten from
<ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu/> (look for emacs-19.34b.tar.gz or
similar), or from one of many mirrors of the GNU collection [``Gnu
Mirrors''].
3. Stage 2. Terminal to remote UNIX system
Arrange for what is called a "shell account" on some Unix system.
Most Internet Service Providers (ISPs) can provide this service. Use
the terminal emulator program and a modem to dial in. Learn the basic
Unix commands. If the system has Emacs installed, or you can persuade
the system administrator to install it, this is your second chance to
learn it. It is probably best to learn it at this point, because
administering a Unix system (the next stage) will call for you to edit
files. Therefore, I include here my suggestions for learning both
Unix and Emacs.
3.1. Learning Unix
When you arrange for a shell account, or set up a new account on your
own machine, you will have to decide on a username and a password.
Your username will also be used in your email address, so try to find
something short and memorable. Your password is important, and should
be hard to guess. That usually means at least six characters,
including at least one non-alphanumeric character.
When a Unix system is ready for you to log in, it normally displays a
prompt ending with "login:". At this point you should type in your
username. It will then prompt you for your password, and will turn
off command echoing while you type it in.
The command to finish a terminal session is logout.
To learn about a command, use the man command to type its manual page
("man page" for short). For example, to learn more about the cp
command by typing man cp. Of course, this helps only if you know or
can guess the command name. However, each man page has a line near
the beginning with the command name, a minus sign, and a short
description of what the command does. You can search a database of
these lines using the command apropos. Thus, typing apropos working
will list lines that include the word "working".
Under Unix, commands normally accept options starting with a minus
sign rather than the forward slash used under DOS. In a path,
directory names are separated by forward slashes rather than backward
slashes. Both operating systems have a "standard input", by default
the keyboard, and a "standard output", by default the display screen.
You can redirect the standard input using "<", and redirect the output
using ">". You can use the output from one command as the input of
another by separating the two commands with "|". This is called the
"pipe" symbol.
The program that interprets your command is a "shell". Most shells
are decendents of either the Bourne shell sh or the C shell csh. The
shell most commonly used with Linux is the "Bourne again shell", or
bash. It has several features which can reduce the need for typing.
You can use the cursor up key key to bring previous commands to the
command line. The cursor will be at the end of the command. You can
use cursor left and right to move the cursor within the command, and
edit it with Emacs style commands (control-D or DEL to delete the
character to the right, et cetera). Also, you can insert the last
word in the previous command with ESC-. (escape period). You can
learn about these and other commands from the bash man page, in the
section entitled "READLINE".
If a program gets "stuck", here is a sequence of keystrokes to try:
� Control-Q. You may have sent a control-S, which halts all output,
without realizing it. The control-Q will restart it.
� Control-D, which signals "end of file" under Unix (similar to
control-Z under DOS), in case the program expects input which you
are not prepared to supply.
� Control-C is an interrupt, which may halt the program.
� Control-Z puts the program in the background. At this point you
may simply log out, although you will be warned about the
background process and will have to repeat the logout command. You
can instead kill the process, as follows: Run ps with no arguments.
It will list a header line, then one line for each of your
processes. The first item on each line is the process id number,
or PID. The command used to start the process (or at least the
beginning of it) appears at the end of the line. If the PID were
117, you would kill the process with the command kill -9 117.
� If running Linux from the console, alt-2, or some other alt-number
combination, will switch to a different virtual console. You can
log in there just as if you had sat down to a different terminal.
� Control-alt-del should reboot the computer nondestructively.
� As a last resort, you can hit "reset" or cycle the power. This
will leave the filesystems in an invalid state, since some buffers
will not have been written to disk. The kernel will discover this
while booting, and will take time to check and repair the
filesystems. Actual data loss is unlikely unless you had something
else going on at the time.
Guido Gonzato Guido@ibogfs.cineca.it has written an excellent guide to
Linux for (former) DOS users, the DOS2Linux mini-HOWTO. You can
probably find it in the same directory as this document, or else at
<ftp://sunsite.unc.edu/pub/Linux/docs/HOWTO/mini/>.
You can find general Unix information, including manual pages for
several systems at <http://www.cis.ohio-
state.edu/hypertext/man_pages.html>
There is a tutorial entitled "Beginning Unix and the C Shell" at
<http://www.eng.hawaii.edu:80/Courses/C.unix/page-03.html>.
You can get general help from <http://www.nova.edu/Inter-
Links/UNIXhelp/TOP_.html> or <http://www.eecs.nwu.edu/unix.html>
You can find a list of books on UNIX at
<http://www.eskimo.com/~cher/eskimospace/booklist.html>.
3.2. Learning Emacs
When you start Emacs, you will normally list on the command line one
or more files which you will be editing. To edit a file named
"foobar" with Emacs, you would enter the command emacs foobar. If you
enter the command emacs with no arguments, GNU Emacs will assume you
are a new user, and print out an introduction which includes the first
five commands you need to learn, approximately as follows:
Type C-h for help; (`C-' means use CTRL key.)
Type C-x u to undo changes.
Type C-h t for a tutorial on using Emacs.
Type C-h i to enter Info, which you can use to read GNU documentation.
To kill the Emacs job, type C-x C-c.
Note the way Emacs documentation refers to key combinations. C-h
means hold the control key down while typing "h". You will also run
into key combinations like M-v, which is pronounced "meta v". The
tutorial suggests holding down the key labeled "edit" or "meta" then
typing "v". I have never run across a keyboard with those keys, so I
always use the escape key instead: typing "Esc" then "v" (two separate
keystrokes). After using Emacs for a long time, I discovered that
under Linux, the left "Alt" key works like a "meta" key. You may want
to use this. On the other hand, some of these key combinations may
conflict with your screen reader or communications program under DOS.
Using the escape key is more reliable.
Three of the above commands start with C-h, which may be treated as a
backspace by your communications program. In that case, you may
access the help command using the long form M-x help. Conversely, you
may find that pressing the backspace key starts the help command.
This issue is treated in the Emacs FAQ, which is available within
Emacs using C-h F or M-x help F. Look for the question "Why does the
`Backspace' key invoke help?". In this case, you may also find that
C-s and C-q are unavailable because they are used for flow control
(XON and XOFF). You should look at the question "How do I handle C-s
and C-q being used for flow control?" in the FAQ. For the particular
command C-x C-s (save buffer), you may substitute the command C-x s
(save-some-buffers). The former command saves the current buffer,
while the latter asks the user about each of the modified buffers.
Note in particular the command "C-h t" to start the tutorial. That is
one the first things you will want to try. I will only make a couple
of comments on the tutorial. To move the cursor, it gives the four
commands C-f, C-b, C-p, and C-n (for forward, back, previous line, and
next line). These commands always work. However, with a properly
installed Emacs, the regular arrow keys should also work. Try them
out and use them if you are more comfortable with them. Similarly,
you may be able to use home, end, page down, and page up keys in place
of the standard commands C-a, C-e, C-v, and M-v. Finally, all
Emacspeak commands begin with C-e. Once you start using Emacspeak,
you will have to type it twice to get the end of line function. (The
"End" key should be unaffected by Emacspeak.)
4. Stage 3. Terminal to local Linux system
This arrangement again requires a DOS machine with a speech
synthesizer and a terminal emulator program. However, instead of
dialing up a remote computer, it is used as a terminal to a local
computer running Linux. To get to this point, you need to install
Linux on a machine. You may be able to prevail on a knowledgable
friend to help you with this. However, it is also possible to install
it yourself with speech feedback for almost the whole procedure.
4.1. Installing Linux
First, some background. Even the simplest Unix system requires a
program called the kernel and a root file system. The kernel has all
the device drivers and resource management functions. One normally
thinks of a "file system" as residing on a hard disk or floppy disk,
but during an installation it is usually in ram. Linux is normally
installed by writing a kernel image to a floppy disk, called the "boot
floppy", configuring it to reserve a section of RAM for a ramdisk,
then filling that ramdisk with data from a second floppy disk, called
the "root floppy". As soon as both floppies have been read in, the
user can log in as "root" and complete the installation. The sighted
user logs in on the "system console", that is, the computer's own
keyboard and video display. However, remember that Unix has been a
multiprocessing operating system from the very beginning. Even this
very primitive Unix system, running out of a small ramdisk, also
supports logins from a terminal connected to a serial port. This is
what a blind user can use.
To connect the two computers, you can use a "null modem", a serial
cable that connects ground to ground, and transmit on each end to
receive on the other. The cable that comes with the DOS application
LapLink will work fine. It is particularly handy, in fact, because it
has both a 9 pin and a 25 pin connector on each end. If you want to
check a cable or have one made, here are the required connections:
For two 9 pin connectors, connect pin 2 (receive data) to pin 3, pin 3
(transmit data) to pin 2, and pin 5 (signal ground) to pin 5.
For two 25 pin connectors, connect pin 2 (receive data) to pin 3, pin
3 (transmit data) to pin 2, and pin 7 (signal ground) to pin 7.
For a 9 pin connector (first) to a 25 pin connector (second), connect
pin 2 (receive data) to pin 2 (transmit data), pin 3 (transmit data)
to pin 3 (receive data), and pin 5 (signal ground) to pin 7 (signal
ground).
You may have noted that I have included no connections for the
"handshaking" signals. During login, the serial port is handled by
the program agetty. Recent versions of this program accept a -L
switch which tells it not to expect modem control signals. The
version in Slackware 3.0 does, but the one on the 3.0 (and earlier)
installation root disks does not. However, Pat Volkerding has assured
me that the root disks in the next release of Slackware will have the
updated version of agetty. It is also possible to use the earlier
root disks [``Emacspeak with Earlier Slackware Releases''].
Consult the documentation on your CDROM, or downloaded from an FTP
site, and choose a boot disk with the proper kernel features for your
hardware (IDE or SCSI, CDROM driver, etc.). I have the InfoMagic
September 1996 "Developer's Resource" set of six CDROMS. Slackware
3.1 is on disk 1 of that set, mostly in the two directories slackwar
and slakware. (Note the difference in spelling. You will access them
in alphabetical order: first slackwar, then slakware.)
Documentation on the boot floppies is in
slackwar\bootdsks.144\which.one. A copy of the DOS program for
writing boot images to a floppy, rawrite.exe, is in the same
directory. Assuming the cdrom is the M drive under DOS, one might use
these commands to write to a floppy disk in the A drive:
C>m:
M>cd \\slackwar\\bootdsks.144
M>rawrite scsinet.s a:
Similarly, to write the "text" root disk:
C>m:
M>cd \\slackwar\\rootdsks
M>rawrite text.gz a:
If you install from floppies, you should also copy the Emacspeak
package onto a floppy with a command like this:
C>copy m:\\slackwar\\contrib\\emacspea.tgz a:
For the actual installation, proceed as follows: Use the null modem to
connect the computer running DOS and equipped with speech output
(which I will call the "DOS machine") to the computer into which you
want to install Linux (the "Linux machine").
Boot the DOS machine, and start your terminal emulation program. Set
it up for 9600 baud, no parity, eight data bits, 1 stop bit.
On the Linux machine, insert the "boot" disk and boot (power up, cntl-
alt-del, or hit the reset switch). It should read the disk for five
seconds or so, beep, and stop with the following text:
(Note: in the following, the large blocks of text quoted from the
installation disks are preceded by "-- begin quote" and followed by
"-- end quote". To skip to the end of a quote, you may search for two
dashes starting in the first column. I have word wrapped some
sections to limit the line lengths.)
-- begin quote
Welcome to the Slackware96 Linux (v. 3.1.0) bootkernel disk!
If you have any extra parameters to pass to the kernel, enter them at
the prompt below after one of the valid configuration names (ramdisk,
mount, drive2)
Here are some examples (and more can be found in the BOOTING file):
ramdisk hd=cyl,hds,secs (Where "cyl", "hds", and "secs" are the
number of cylinders, sectors, and heads
on the drive. Most machines won't need
this.)
In a pinch, you can boot your system with a command like:
mount root=/dev/hda1
On machines with low memory, you can use mount root=/dev/fd1 or mount
root=/dev/fd0 to install without a ramdisk. See LOWMEM.TXT for
details.
If you would rather load the root/install disk from your second
floppy drive: drive2 (or even this: ramdisk root=/dev/fd1)
DON'T SWITCH ANY DISKS YET! This prompt is just for entering extra
parameters. If you don't need to enter any parameters, hit ENTER to
continue.
boot:
-- end quote
I have almost always been able to just hit "enter" at this point.
After your entry, the Linux machine should read the floppy for another
twenty seconds or so, then boot the kernel. The first thing it prints
is "Loading ramdisk...", which is somewhat misleading. In this case,
"ramdisk" is actually the name of the kernel configuration.
Each device driver in the kernel displays a line or two. The
particular disk I'm using (the "bare.i" bootdisk) displays more than
one screen's worth. It is possible to type shift-page up to scroll
the text back. On my machine, the boot messages are as follows:
-- begin quote
Loading ramdisk.....
Uncompressing Linux...done.
Now booting the kernel
Console: colour VGA+ 80x25, 1 virtual console (max 63)
Calibrating delay loop.. ok - 35.94 BogoMIPS
Memory: 23028k/24768k available (688k kernel code, 384k reserved,
668k data)
Swansea University Computer Society NET3.035 for Linux 2.0
NET3: Unix domain sockets 0.12 for Linux NET3.035.
Swansea University Computer Society TCP/IP for NET3.034
IP Protocols: ICMP, UDP, TCP
VFS: Diskquotas version dquot_5.6.0 initialized
Checking 386/387 coupling... Ok, fpu using exception 16 error reporting.
Checking 'hlt' instruction... Ok.
Linux version 2.0.0 (root@darkstar) (gcc version 2.7.2) #1 Mon Jun 10
21:11:56 CDT 1996
Serial driver version 4.13 with no serial options enabled
tty00 at 0x03f8 (irq = 4) is a 16550A
PS/2 auxiliary pointing device detected -- driver installed.
Ramdisk driver initialized : 16 ramdisks of 49152K size
hda: IBM-DBOA-2720, 689MB w/64KB Cache, LBA, CHS=700/32/63
ide0: at 0x1f0-0x1f7,0x3f6 on irq 14
Floppy drive(s): fd0 is 1.44M
Started kswapd v 1.4.2.2
FDC 0 is a 8272A
Partition check:
hda: hda1 hda2 hda3
VFS: Insert root floppy disk to be loaded into ramdisk and press ENTER
-- end quote
Some messages will of course be different on a machine with different
hardware. Now, insert the "text" rootdisk and press ENTER. After it
is read, the following is displayed on the console:
-- begin quote
RAMDISK: Compressed image found at block 0
JAVA Binary support v1.01 for Linux 1.3.98 (C)1996 Brian A. Lantz
VFS: Mounted root (minix filesystem).
INIT: version 2.60 booting
none on /proc type proc (rw)
INIT: Entering runlevel: 4
Welcome to the Slackware Linux installation disk ,version 3.1.0-text!
### READ THE INSTRUCTIONS BELOW CAREFULLY! ###
You will need one or more partitions of type "Linux native"
prepared. It is also recommended that you create a swap partition
(type "Linux swap") prior to installation. Most users can use the
Linux "fdisk" utility to create and tag the types of all these
partitions. OS/2 Boot Manager users, however, should create their
Linux partitions with OS/2 "fdisk", add the bootable (root) partition
to the Boot Manager menu, and then use the Linux "fdisk" to tag the
partitions as type "Linux native".
If you have 4 megabytes or less of RAM, you MUST ACTIVATE a swap
partition before running setup. After making the partition with fdisk,
use:
mkswap /dev/<partition> <number of blocks> ; swapon /dev/<partition>
Once you have prepared the disk partitions for Linux, type "setup" to
begin the installation process.
You may now login as "root".
slackware login:
-- end quote
The program that prints the login prompt is called agetty. The
Slackware 3.1 root disks are set up to allow logins only from the
computer's own keyboard. You will have to reconfigure it to also
allow logins from a serial port. This requires typing four lines on
the Linux machine keyboard, with no voice feedback. If you realize
you have made a mistake before hitting the carriage return, you can
erase it with the backspace key. You can also discard what you have
typed on a line with control-C. Here is what you type:
root
cat >>/etc/inittab
s1:45:respawn:/sbin/agetty 9600 ttyS0
control-D
init q
I will repeat that with explanations of what is going on.
First, type "root" and a single carriage return to log in (no password
is needed). Next, you need to append one line to /etc/inittab. Type
the following two lines:
cat >>/etc/inittab
s1:45:respawn:/sbin/agetty 9600 ttyS0
Finish each line with the "enter" key. Then type a control-D, which
signals end of file to a Unix program. (Note: In the second line, the
next to last character is an upper case "S". Everything else is in
lower case.) This adds a line to the configuration file of the
program init, to instruct it to use agetty to watch for logins on the
first serial port on the Linux machine, called "COM1" under DOS, or
"/dev/ttyS0" under Linux. To use the second port instead, change the
last item on the above line to "ttyS1".
Then type
init q
which causes init to reread /etc/inittab. At this point the DOS
machine should display the login prompt (the third of the blocks of
text quoted above). On the DOS machine, type root, and finish the
installation. (The next thing you should do is create and enable a
swap partition.)
If you don't get the Slackware installation disk prompt, try the
following:
� Type a single carriage return on the DOS machine.
� Recheck the terminal setup (9600 baud, no parity, eight data bits,
1 stop bit)
� Disconnect the null modem from the DOS machine. In its place,
connect a modem which supports the Hayes "AT" commands. Type AT
and a carriage return. You should get a reply of "OK" from the
modem.
Once you get the above prompt on the DOS machine, you may type root
and a carriage return to log in, and complete the installation like
any other user. Of course, you must remember to include these
packages: emacs, tcl, and tclX.
The installation script will offer to prepare a boot floppy. You
should do this, since it is the most foolproof way to boot Linux. You
will probably also want to install lilo (which is an abbreviation for
"Linux loader") and/or loadlin (which is an abbreviation for "load
Linux"). The installation script can install lilo. Loadlin is a DOS
program that will let you boot from DOS to Linux. Install it on a DOS
partition, and copy a compressed kernel file (usually named zImage) to
the same partition. While running DOS, you may boot Linux with a
command like loadlin zimage root=/dev/hda3 ro/. (I have assumed here
that the kernel image is in the same directory as the loadlin program.
You may find it more convenient to store kernel images in
subdirectories named for the kernel version.)
After the Slackware setup script finishes the main installation, it
will tell you to restart by pressing cntl-alt-del. Before doing that,
you should install emacspeak. It can be found with the other
"contributed" software. In the InfoMagic set, it is in
slackwar/contrib. Assuming you are installing Linux directly from a
cdrom, the setup script will mount the cdrom under /CDROM, and you may
install emacspeak with the following command:
# installpkg /CDROM/slackwar/contrib/emacspeak.tgz
If you install from floppies, insert the floppy you made earlier and
type this:
# mount -tmsdos /dev/fd0 /floppy
# installpkg /floppy/emacspea.tgz
Reboot the Linux machine with the new boot floppy, with the DOS
machine still connected. You should get a login prompt on the DOS
machine. Celebrate! After getting this system working, you need to
learn emacs (third option) and Unix system administration.
4.2. Learning Unix System Administration
Mostly you will learn system administration as the need arises. First
adding a user (yourself), then installing programs, and so forth. The
exception to this is making backups, which you should learn before you
need them.
Among the many programs you will need to learn are these:
adduser
Register a new user, including creating a home directory and
adding an entry in /etc/passwd.
tar
Create and unpack .tar files, which are collections of files
(something like .zip files). To list the contents of an
archive, use tar -tf foobar.tar. For a more verbose listing,
use tar -tvf foobar.tar. To unpack an archive, use tar -xf
foobar.tar.
chmod
Change permissions of a file or directory.
chown
Change ownership of a file or directory.
find
Search directories recursively. For example, the command find .
-name '*alpha*' -print means: search starting in the current
directory (.) for a file whose name contains the string "alpha"
(-name '*alpha*'), and print its path and name (-print). (With
GNU find, the -print is optional.)
du Display the amount of space occupied by files or subdirectories.
For a file with "holes", this may be much less than the length
of the file.
df Display filesystem capacities, free space, and where they are
mounted.
mount
Display filesystems, where they are mounted, and the mount
flags.
ifconfig
Configure and check internet protocol (IP) network interfaces,
including Ethernet cards, SLIP links, and PLIP links.
route
Configure and check IP network routing, after the interface is
configured.
ping
Check IP network connectivity, after the interfaces and routes
are configured.
ftp
Transfer files across the Internet.
Here are some programs you may want to install:
agrep
Approximate grep searches for approximate, not exact, string
matches (also called "fuzzy string searches").
archie
Search Internet archives for files.
flip
Convert text files between Unix and DOS formats.
glimpse
Fuzzy string searches in large collection of files (uses agrep).
lynx
Text mode web browser.
Here are some Web pages related to Unix system administration:
General information <http://www.ensta.fr/internet/unix/sys_admin/> or
<http://www.sai.msu.su/sysadm.html>
There is a Unix system administration tutorial at
<http://www.iem.ac.ru/sysadm.html>
UnixWorld Online Magazine Home Page <http://www.wcmh.com/uworld/>
Internet Essentials for UNIX System Administrators Tutorial
<http://www.greatcircle.com/tutorials/ieusa.html>
Pointers to Unix goodies available on the Internet
<http://www.ensta.fr/internet/unix/>
Pointers to Unix system administration "goodies" available on the
Internet <http://www.ensta.fr/internet/unix/sys_admin/>
5. Stage 4. Emacspeak under Linux
The Slackware setup script for Emacspeak should create the needed
environment variables and install a script emacspeak that starts emacs
with emacspeak. This is your fourth option for learning Emacs. This
is the first time you will be able to actually use Emacspeak. A short
tutorial appears below. Within Emacs, you may type C-h C-e to get a
list of the commands. To search for a command, use C-h a. To get an
explanation for a key sequence, use C-h k. There is also an info file
which is part of the Emacspeak distribution. Within emacs, you may
type C-u C-h i, then enough backspaces to delete the default path
(that is, until the beep), then "/usr/info/emacspeak.info". If you
have the standalone info program installed, you can consult the info
file with the command info Emacspeak.
5.1. Emacspeak Introduction - Speech Enabled Normal Commands
All of the normal Emacs movement commands will speak the relevant
information after moving. Here are some of the cursor movement
functions that have been speech enabled. Note that this list only
enumerates a few of these speech enabled commands; the purpose of
emacspeak is to speech-enable all of emacs and provide you spoken
feedback as you work. Thus, this list is here only as a
representative example of the kind of speech-enabling extensions
Emacspeak provides.
`C-n' or `M-x next-line' or `down' Moves the cursor to the next line
and speaks it.
`C-p' or `M-x previous-line' or `up' Moves the cursor to the previous
line and speaks it.
`M-f' or `M-x forward-word' or Moves the cursor to the next word and
speaks it. Places point on the first character of the next work,
rather than on the space preceding it (This is my personal
preference).
`M-b' or `M-x backward-word' Moves the cursor to the previous word and
speaks it.
`M-C-b' or `M-x backward-sexp' Moves the cursor to the previous sexp
and speaks it. If the sexp spans more than a line, only the first
line is spoken.
`M-<' or `M-x beginning-of-buffer' Speaks line moved to.
`M->' or `M-x end-of-buffer' Speaks line moved to.
`M-m' or `M-x back-to-indentation' Speaks entire current line. A
useful way of hearing the current line.
5.2. Emacspeak Introduction - New Commands
Emacspeak provides a number of commands for reading portions of the
current buffer, getting status information, and modifying Emacspeak's
state.
All of the commands are documented in the subsequent sections. They
can be classified into types:
Emacspeak commands for listening to chunks of information. The names
of these commands all start with the common prefix `emacspeak-'. All
Emacspeak commands are bound to the keymap EMACSPEAK-KEYMAP and are
accessed with the key `Control e'. Thus, the Emacspeak command
"emacspeak-speak-line" is bound to `l' in keymap EMACSPEAK-KEYMAP and
can be accessed with the keystroke `Control-e l'.
Here are some of the commands for reading text:
`C-e c' or `M-x emacspeak-speak-char' Speak current character, using
the phonetic alphabet.
`C-e w' or `M-x emacspeak-speak-word' Speak current word.
`C-e l' or `M-x emacspeak-speak-line' Speak current line. With prefix
`C-u', speaks the rest of the line from point. With negative prefix
`C-u -', speaks from start of line to point. Voicifies if voice-lock-
mode is on. Indicates indentation with a tone if audio indentation is
in use. Indicates position of point with an aural highlight if option
emacspeak-show-point is turned on --see command `M-x emacspeak-show-
point'.
`C-e .' or `M-x emacspeak-speak-sentence' Speak the current sentence.
`C-e C-c' or `M-x emacspeak-speak-current-window' Speak everything in
the current window.
`C-e =' or `M-x emacspeak-speak-current-column' State the column where
point is.
The second category of commands provided by Emacspeak manipulate the
state of the speech device. The names of these commands start with
the common prefix `dtk-'. You can access these commands via the
prefix `Control-e d'. Thus, the command "dtk-set-rate" is bound to
`r' in keymap EMACSPEAK-DTK-SUBMAP and can be executed by pressing
`Control e d r'.
`C-e s' or `M-x dtk-stop' Stop speech now. In addition, any command
that causes speech output will discard anything in the speech buffer.
`C-e d I' or `M-x dtk-toggle-stop-immediately-while-typing' Toggle
state of variable dtk-stop-immediately-while-typing. As the name
implies, if true then speech flushes immediately as you type.
`C-e d i' or `M-x emacspeak-toggle-audio-indentation' Toggle state of
Emacspeak audio indentation. Specifying the method of indentation as
`tone' results in the DECtalk producing a tone whose length is a
function of the line's indentation. Specifying `speak' results in the
number of initial spaces being spoken.
`C-e d k' or `M-x emacspeak-toggle-character-echo' Toggle state of
Emacspeak character echo (that is, whether typed characters are
echoed).
`C-e d w' or `M-x emacspeak-toggle-word-echo' Toggle state of
Emacspeak word echo (initially on).
`C-e d l' or `M-x emacspeak-toggle-line-echo' Toggle state of
Emacspeak line echo (that is, whether typed text is echoed after
typing enter).
`C-e d p' or `M-x dtk-set-punctuations' Set punctuation state.
Possible values are `some', `all', or `none'.
`C-e d q' or `M-x dtk-toggle-quiet' Toggle state of the speech device
between being quiet and talkative. Useful if you want to continue
using an emacs session that has emacspeak loaded but wish to make the
speech shut up.
`C-e d R' or `M-x dtk-reset-state' Restore sanity to the Dectalk.
Typically used after the Dectalk has been power cycled.
`C-e d SPC' or `M-x dtk-toggle-splitting-on-white-space' Toggle state
of emacspeak that decides if we split text purely by clause
boundaries, or also include whitespace.
`C-e d r' or `M-x dtk-set-rate' Set speaking rate for the dectalk.
`C-e d s' or `M-x dtk-toggle-split-caps' Toggle split caps mode. In
split caps mode, a transition from lower case to upper case is treated
like the beginning of a new word. This is useful when reading
Hungarian notation in program source code.
`C-e d v' or `M-x voice-lock-mode' Toggle Voice Lock mode (initially
off). When Voice Lock mode is enabled, text is voiceified as you type
it, as follows:
� Comments are spoken in voice-lock-comment-personality; (That is a
variable whose value should be a personality name.)
� Strings are spoken in voice-lock-string-personality.
� Documentation strings are spoken in voice-lock-doc-string-
personality.
� Function and variable names in their defining forms are spoken in
voice-lock-function-name-personality.
� Certain other expressions are spoken in other personalities
according to the value of the variable voice-lock-keywords.
`C-e d V' or `M-x emacspeak-dtk-speak-version' Use this to find out
which version of the Dectalk firmware you have.
6. Footnotes and References
6.1. JAWS
Job Access With Speech (JAWS) is a screen reader which runs under
Microsoft MSDOS. It is a product of Henter-Joyce, Inc., 2100 62nd
Avenue Nort, St. Petersburg, FL 33702, telephone: 800-336-5658. A
demo of JAWS for DOS is available at
<ftp://ftp.hj.com/pub/jh/dosdemos/JAWS231D.EXE>.
6.2. TELIX
TELIX is a shareware terminal emulator for MSDOS. It can be obtained
by FTP from the SimTel archive [``SimTel'']. Within the SimTel
collection, look for directory msdos/telix. For example, try
<ftp://ftp.coast.net/pub/SimTel/msdos/telix>. The latest version of
the program itself is in the four files tlx322-1.zip, tlx322-2.zip,
tlx322-3.zip, and tlx322-4.zip.
6.3. COMMO
COMMO is another shareware terminal emulator for DOS. In the SimTel
archive [``SimTel''], it is in directory msdos/commprog, file
commo66.zip. For example, try
<ftp://ftp.coast.net/pub/SimTel/msdos/commprog/commo66.zip>.
6.4. SimTel
The SimTel archive is maintained by Keith Petersen w8sdz@Simtel.Net.
CD-ROM copies of Simtel.Net collections are available from Walnut
Creek CDROM [``Walnut Creek'']. The primary ftp sites are
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet>, and
<oak.oakland.edu://pub/simtelnet>. There are many mirror sites, as
listed in the following table:
� US, ALL (primary) <ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet>
� US, California <ftp://ftp.cdrom.com/pub/simtelnet>
� US, California <ftp://ftp.digital.com/pub/micro/pc/simtelnet>
� US, California <ftp://ftp.lib.sonoma.edu/pub/simtelnet>
� US, Illinois
<ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/systems/pc/simtelnet>
� US, Massachusetts <ftp://ftp.bu.edu/pub/mirrors/simtelnet>
� US, Michigan <ftp://oak.oakland.edu/pub/simtelnet>
� US, New York <ftp://ftp.rge.com/pub/systems/simtelnet>
� US, Oklahoma <ftp://ftp.ou.edu/pub/simtelnet>
� US, Oregon <ftp://ftp.orst.edu/pub/simtelnet>
� US, Pennsylvania <ftp://ftp.epix.net/pub/simtelnet>
� US, Utah <ftp://ftp.cyber-naut.com/pub/simtelnet>
� US, Virginia <ftp://mirrors.aol.com/pub/simtelnet>
� Argentina <ftp://ftp.satlink.com/pub/mirrors/simtelnet>
� Australia <ftp://ftp.iniaccess.net.au/pub/simtelnet>
� Australia <ftp://sunsite.anu.edu.au/pub/pc/simtelnet>
� Austria, Vienna <ftp://ftp.univie.ac.at/mirror/simtelnet>
� Belgium <ftp://ftp.linkline.be/mirror/simtelnet>
� Belgium <ftp://ftp.tornado.be/pub/simtelnet>
� Bulgaria <ftp://ftp.eunet.bg/pub/simtelnet>
� Brazil <ftp://ftp.iis.com.br/pub/simtelnet>
� Brazil <ftp://ftp.unicamp.br/pub/simtelnet>
� Canada, Ottawa <ftp://ftp.crc.doc.ca/systems/ibmpc/simtelnet>
� Canada, Vancouver <ftp://ftp.direct.ca/pub/simtelnet>
� Chile
<ftp://sunsite.dcc.uchile.cl/pub/Mirror/simtelnet>
� China <ftp://ftp.pku.edu.cn/pub/simtelnet>
� Czech Republic <ftp://ftp.eunet.cz/pub/simtelnet>
� Czech Republic <ftp://ftp.zcu.cz/pub/simtelnet>
� Czech Republic <ftp://pub.vse.cz/pub/simtelnet>
� Finland
<ftp://ftp.funet.fi/mirrors/ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet>
� France <ftp://ftp.grolier.fr/pub/simtelnet>
� France <ftp://ftp.ibp.fr/pub/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.mpi-sb.mpg.de/pub/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.rz.ruhr-uni-bochum.de/pub/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.tu-chemnitz.de/pub/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.uni-heidelberg.de/pub/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.uni-
magdeburg.de/pub/mirrors/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.uni-paderborn.de/pub/simtelnet>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.uni-
trier.de/pub/pc/mirrors/Simtel.net>
� Germany <ftp://ftp.rz.uni-
wuerzburg.de/pub/pc/simtelnet>
� Greece <ftp://ftp.ntua.gr/pub/pc/simtelnet>
� Hong Kong <ftp://ftp.cs.cuhk.hk/pub/simtelnet>
� Hong Kong <ftp://ftp.hkstar.com/pub/simtelnet>
� Hong Kong <ftp://sunsite.ust.hk/pub/simtelnet>
� Ireland <ftp://ftp.iol.ie/pub/simtelnet>
� Israel <ftp://ftp.huji.ac.il/pub/simtelnet>
� Italy <ftp://cis.utovrm.it/simtelnet>
� Italy <ftp://ftp.flashnet.it/pub/simtelnet>
� Italy <ftp://ftp.unina.it/pub/simtelnet>
� Italy <ftp://mcftp.mclink.it/pub/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ftp.iij.ad.jp/pub/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ftp.riken.go.jp/pub/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ftp.saitama-u.ac.jp/pub/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ftp.u-aizu.ac.jp/pub/PC/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ftp.web.ad.jp/pub/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ring.aist.go.jp/pub/simtelnet>
� Japan <ftp://ring.asahi-net.or.jp/pub/simtelnet>
� Latvia <ftp://ftp.lanet.lv/pub/mirror/simtelnet>
� Malaysia <ftp://ftp.jaring.my/pub/simtelnet>
� Malaysia <ftp://ftp.mimos.my/pub/simtelnet>
� Mexico <ftp://ftp.gdl.iteso.mx/pub/simtelnet>
� Netherlands <ftp://ftp.euro.net/d5/simtelnet>
� Netherlands <ftp://ftp.nic.surfnet.nl/mirror-
archive/software/simtelnet>
� New Zealand <ftp://ftp.vuw.ac.nz/pub/simtelnet>
� Norway <ftp://ftp.bitcon.no/pub/simtelnet>
� Poland <ftp://ftp.cyf-kr.edu.pl/pub/mirror/Simtel.Net>
� Poland <ftp://ftp.icm.edu.pl/pub/simtelnet>
� Poland <ftp://ftp.man.poznan.pl/pub/simtelnet>
� Portugal <ftp://ftp.ip.pt/pub/simtelnet>
� Portugal <ftp://ftp.ua.pt/pub/simtelnet>
� Romania <ftp://ftp.sorostm.ro/pub/simtelnet>
� Singapore <ftp://ftp.nus.sg/pub/simtelnet>
� Slovakia <ftp://ftp.uakom.sk/pub/simtelnet>
� Slovenia <ftp://ftp.arnes.si/software/simtelnet>
� South Africa <ftp://ftp.is.co.za/pub/simtelnet>
� South Africa <ftp://ftp.sun.ac.za/pub/simtelnet>
� South Korea <ftp://ftp.nuri.net/pub/simtelnet>
� South Korea <ftp://ftp.sogang.ac.kr/pub/simtelnet>
� South Korea <ftp://sunsite.snu.ac.kr/pub/simtelnet>
� Spain <ftp://ftp.rediris.es/mirror/simtelnet>
� Sweden <ftp://ftp.sunet.se/pub/simtelnet>
� Switzerland <ftp://sunsite.cnlab-
switch.ch/mirror/simtelnet>
� Taiwan <ftp://ftp.ncu.edu.tw/Packages/simtelnet>
� Taiwan <ftp://nctuccca.edu.tw/mirror/simtelnet>
� Thailand <ftp://ftp.nectec.or.th/pub/mirrors/simtelnet>
� UK, Edinburgh <ftp://emwac.ed.ac.uk/mirrors/simtelnet>
� UK, London <ftp://ftp.demon.co.uk/pub/simtelnet>
� UK, Lancaster <ftp://micros.hensa.ac.uk/pub/simtelnet>
� UK, London <ftp://sunsite.doc.ic.ac.uk/packages/simtelnet>
6.5. InfoMagic
InfoMagic is at 11950 N. Highway 89, Flagstaff AZ 86004, telephone
800-800-6613 or 520-526-9565, fax 520-526-9573, email:
info@infomagic.com, web: <http://www.infomagic.com>.
6.6. Walnut Creek
Walnut Creek CDROM has many useful CDROMs. They are at 4041 Pike
Lane, Ste D-Simtel, Concord, CA 94520, USA. Telephone (800) 786-9907
or (510) 674-0783, or FAX (510) 674-0821. email: orders@cdrom.com.
Web: <http://www.cdrom.com/>
6.7. Red Hat
Red Hat Software: telephone 800-454-5502 or 203-454-5500, fax:
203-454-2582, email: sales@redhat.com. Web: <http://www.redhat.com>.
6.8. Craftwork
CraftWork Solutions, 4320 Stevens Creek Blvd, Suite 170, San Jose CA
95129, telephone 800-985-1878, email: info@craftwork.com, web:
<http://www.craftwork.com>.
6.9. Yggdrasil
Yggdrasil Computing, 4880 Stevens Creek Blvd., Suite 205, San Jose CA
95129-1024, telephone 800-261-6630 or 408-261-6630, fax: 408-261-6631,
email: info@yggdrasil.com, web: <http://www.yggdrasil.com>.
6.10. Emacs for DOS
From the Emacs FAQ of November 11, 1996:
--begin quote
93: Where can I get Emacs for my PC running MS-DOS?
A pre-built binary distribution of Emacs 19.34 should be available by
the beginning of November 1996 from the Simtel archives, the main site
of which is at
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu/>
If you prefer to compile Emacs for yourself, you will need a 386 (or
better) processor, and are running MS-DOS 3.0 or later. According to
Eli Zaretskii eliz@is.elta.co.il and Darrel Hankerson
hankedr@dms.auburn.edu, you will need the following:
Compiler: djgpp version 1.12 maint 1 or later. Djgpp 2.0 or later is
recommended, since 1.x is being phased out. Djgpp 2 supports long
filenames under Windows 95.
You can get the latest release of djgpp by retrieving all of the files
in
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp>
Gunzip and tar:
The easiest way is to use "djtar" which comes with djgpp v2.x, because
it can open gzip'ed tarfiles (i.e., those ending with ".tar.gz") in
one step. Djtar comes in "djdev201.zip", from the URL mentioned
above.
Utilities: make, mv, sed, rm.
All of these utilities are available at
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/djgpp/v2gnu>
16-bit utilities can be found in GNUish:
<ftp://ftp.simtel.net/pub/simtelnet/gnu/gnuish>
The file INSTALL in the top-level directory of the Emacs source
contains some additional information regarding Emacs under MS-DOS. In
addition, the file etc/MSDOS contains some information on the
differences between the Unix and MS-DOS versions of Emacs.
For the most comprehensive information on running GNU Emacs on a PC,
see the file prepared by Michael Ernst mernst@theory.lcs.mit.edu at
<ftp://theory.lcs.mit.edu/pub/emacs/pc-emacs.gz>
For a list of other MS-DOS implementations of Emacs (and Emacs look-
alikes), consult the list of "Emacs implementations and literature,"
available at
<ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/comp.emacs/>
Note that while many of these programs look similar to Emacs, they
often lack certain features, such as the Emacs Lisp extension
language.
--end quote
6.11. GNU Mirror Sites
The GNU collection at <ftp://prep.ai.mit.edu/pub/gnu> is mirrored at
many sites. Mirrors in USA include these:
� <ftp://labrea.stanford.edu/pub/gnu>
� <ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/systems/gnu>
� <ftp://ftp.kpc.com/pub/mirror/gnu>
� <ftp://f.ms.uky.edu/pub3/gnu>
� <ftp://jaguar.utah.edu/gnustuff>
� <ftp://ftp.hawaii.edu/mirrors/gnu>
� <ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/gnu>
� <ftp://uiarchive.cso.uiuc.edu/pub/gnu>
� <ftp://ftp.cs.columbia.edu/archives/gnu/prep>
� <ftp://gatekeeper.dec.com/pub/GNU>
� <ftp://ftp.uu.net/systems/gnu>
6.12. Emacspeak with Earlier Slackware Releases
If you want to install Slackware 3.0 or earlier, you will need to
prepare a full null modem cable, including modem control signals.
For two DB25 (25 pin) connectors, the required connections are:
� 1 (Frame Ground) - 1 (Frame Ground)
� 2 (Receive Data) - 3 (Transmit Data)
� 3 (Transmit Data) - 2 (Receive Data)
� 4 (Request To Send) - 5 (Clear To Send)
� 5 (Clear To Send) - 4 (Request To Send)
� 6 (Data Set Ready) - 20 (Data Terminal Ready)
� 7 (Signal Ground) - 7 (Signal Ground)
� 8 (Carrier Detect) - 20 (Data Terminal Ready)
� 20 (Data Terminal Ready) - 6 (Data Set Ready)
� 20 (Data Terminal Ready) - 8 (Carrier Detect)
For two DB9 connectors, the connections are:
� 1 (Carrier Detect) - 4 (Data Terminal Ready)
� 2 (Receive Data) - 3 (Transmit Data)
� 3 (Transmit Data) - 2 (Receive Data)
� 4 (Data Terminal Ready) - 6 (Data Set Ready)
� 4 (Data Terminal Ready) - 1 (Carrier Detect)
� 5 (Signal Ground) - 5 (Signal Ground)
� 6 (Data Set Ready) - 4 (Data Terminal Ready)
� 7 (Request To Send) - 8 (Clear To Send)
� 8 (Clear To Send) - 7 (Request To Send)
� 9 (Ring Indicator) not connected
For a DB9 (listed first) to a DB25 (second), the connections are:
� 1 (Carrier Detect) - 20 (Data Terminal Ready)
� 2 (Receive Data) - 2 (Transmit Data)
� 3 (Transmit Data) - 3 (Receive Data)
� 4 (Data Terminal Ready) - 6 (Data Set Ready)
� 4 (Data Terminal Ready) - 8 (Carrier Detect)
� 5 (Signal Ground) - 7 (Signal Ground)
� 6 (Data Set Ready) - 20(Data Terminal Ready)
� 7 (Request To Send) - 5 (Clear To Send)
� 8 (Clear To Send) - 4 (Request To Send)
� 9 (Ring Indicator) not connected
7. Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
7.1. Why does it say "space" after each character?
Your DECtalk Express has old firmware. Use the Emacspeak command `C-e
d V' to find out your version. You should be running a version no
older than 4.2bw from March 1995. If you have an earlier version, you
can find an updated version at
<http://www.ultranet.com/~rongemma/tips_upd.htm>, a WWW site
maintained by Ron Jemma of the Dectalk Group at DEC. Alternatively,
you can send email to Anne Nelson at DECnelson@dectlk.enet.dec.com.
The most recent version at this writing is 4.3 release AA X01 May 20
1996.
7.2. tones that last for several words or more, if this happens in a
buffer it will often repeat within the same buffer. On occation when
reading the dectalk will produce high pitch
The problem is due to remaining bugs in the Dectalk firmware. When
emacspeak produces tones, especially when split caps is on, the dtk
sometime goes into squealing mode.
If you notice this happening in particular text documents, just turn
off split caps mode locally with `C-e d s'.
8. Legalese
All trademarks used in this document are acknowledged as being owned
by their respective owners. (Spot the teeth-gritting irony there...)
The right of James R. Van Zandt to be identified as the author of this
work is hereby asserted in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the
Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.
This document is copyright (c) 1996 James R. Van Zandt
jrv@vanzandt.mv.com. It may be reproduced and distributed in whole or
in part, in any medium physical or electronic, as long as this
copyright notice is retained on all copies. Commercial redistribution
is allowed and encouraged; however, the author would like to be
notified of any such distributions.
All translations, derivative works, or aggregate works incorporating
any Linux HOWTO documents must be covered under this copyright notice.
That is, you may not produce a derivative work from a HOWTO and impose
additional restrictions on its distribution. Exceptions to these rules
may be granted under certain conditions; please contact the Linux
HOWTO coordinator at the address given below.
In short, we wish to promote dissemination of this information through
as many channels as possible. However, we do wish to retain copyright
on the HOWTO documents, and would like to be notified of any plans to
redistribute the HOWTOs.
If you have questions, please contact Greg Hankins, the Linux HOWTO
coordinator, at gregh@sunsite.unc.edu via email.