Hi! In this eMail I summaries what we've been doing with the Raspberry Pi computer and Daisy Audio.
Firstly, the Raspberry Pi we've programmed does not read Text Daisy books or publications due to the problems we've experienced thus far trying to get TTS working in a stable manner on the Pi, I know others are testing and having similar stability issues to ours so its a common problem so we'll keep out ear to the ground to see if the situation changes. So now to the Pi and Daisy audio, the advantage having a Raspberry Pi play Daisy audio is quite obvious in that the Pi and associated components are far cheaper than a dedicated Daisy player, around $100.00 Australian and perhaps cheaper if you know where to look. The Player configuration consists of several parts, the Raspberry Pi itself, a SD card containing the LYNUX operating system along with the player software, a remote controller unit, a USB dongle which is the interface between the infra red remote controller unit and the Pi and a simple passive loudspeaker which plugs into the audio out jack of the Pi, Daisy content is available through a USB memory stick which plugs into the other USB port on the Pi. We chose a remote controller unit as they're cheap, you could use a "QWERTY" keyboard but they're big and bulky. Our preferred method was the external USB Number Pad but they don't seem to be readily available these days. With the remote controller unit you can use the up/down/left/right arrow circle to do the navigation, the controller has its own number pad which we've not programmed for any specific use as yet however its on the drawing board obviously, with over 35 buttons on the controller we have flexibility at our fingertips. Even though we don't as yet have TTS working, we do have a basic Voice prompting and guidance system, this was easy enough to put in place - the Pi just plays the appropriate prompt to the action performed or the error encountered -. I'll publish more notes on this project as they come to hand, the main point of publishing now was to gage interest amongst other users for such a product. ********** Dane Trethowan Skype: grtdane12 Phone US (213) 438-9741 Phone U.K. 01245 79 0598 Phone Australia (03) 9005 8589 Mobile: +61400494862 Fax +61397437954 To unsubscribe from this list, send a blank email to: [email protected]
