Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Thomas, Yes, but I don't know of anyone who did write their own DirectSound type API for dos games. So what PCS Games and I did was to use an external wave file player program that would work with any sound card such as Plany.exe or SbPlay.exe. I did also ship the Creative Labs program WPlay.exe for those who did have a Creative Labs sound card. But of course since the games used an external wave file player program the games were not as interactive with the sounds as we have been able to make windows games with DirectX etc. BFN Jim DOS=HIGH? I knew it was on something... [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
oh deer, who would take their cat and throw it into the swimming pool to hear it screech? I swear by shades of doom and them violence games where you kill kill murder and all that, but it sticks to games, never got anywhere near my head like folks claim it could. - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Thomas Ward Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 6:26 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Thomas, That's cool that you wrote and played your own text card and board games. As you said for programming practice and so that you could play the games. That really was why I wrote them as well. I mean because I wanted to play them and at that time there were not any games like that that were accessible. It was like back in like 1990 that I first got on line and got into the FidoNet Email lists such as Blink Talk and Blind Talk. That and searching the BBSs was how I found that there was a need to share the games that I was producing for my own playability. It sure was nice to be able to share the games and find out that others appreciated them. You said What I was trying to point out was that for me I was extremely disappointed that back in 99 or so when I first joined this comunity most of the discussion centered around card games, board games, and Ok, it just sounded to me like you were saying that games like that were useless and people shouldn't even waste time making them because no one would even want to play them. Yeah, you got on line about the time that the first David Greenwood games for windows were coming out. We sure have come along way since the days of the dos games where we didn't have a sound file playing engine like DirectX. I thought that it was very exciting when David openly here asked for input and worked on creating the first accessible live action first person shooter game. It then gave me the idea that I could try to do the same with the first accessible live action auto racing game. I can still play these live action games for hours like I used to play video games. Yeah, it may very well be an age difference thing as I am still an anti war, anti violence, long hair, peace loving hippie. Or it may be a personality difference thing. I just have never gotten into any of the D and D or other role play type of games. And of course I would never ever take my pet cat and throw it into a swimming pool just to hear it scream. BFN Jim Fighting for peace is like screaming for quiet. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Rofl, that is quite helarious, Valiant. Anyway, yeah, I agree. You just shouldn't play these games until your like 12 (the violent ones that is) although I guess a lot of kids under that age do. Also depends on maturity level- for me, I think I was mature by 10. But for others, it might take them until 15. Anyway, just my thoughts. Tyler - Original Message - From: Valiant (on laptop) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 7:28 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension oh deer, who would take their cat and throw it into the swimming pool to hear it screech? I swear by shades of doom and them violence games where you kill kill murder and all that, but it sticks to games, never got anywhere near my head like folks claim it could. - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Thomas Ward Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 6:26 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Thomas, That's cool that you wrote and played your own text card and board games. As you said for programming practice and so that you could play the games. That really was why I wrote them as well. I mean because I wanted to play them and at that time there were not any games like that that were accessible. It was like back in like 1990 that I first got on line and got into the FidoNet Email lists such as Blink Talk and Blind Talk. That and searching the BBSs was how I found that there was a need to share the games that I was producing for my own playability. It sure was nice to be able to share the games and find out that others appreciated them. You said What I was trying to point out was that for me I was extremely disappointed that back in 99 or so when I first joined this comunity most of the discussion centered around card games, board games, and Ok, it just sounded to me like you were saying that games like that were useless and people shouldn't even waste time making them because no one would even want to play them. Yeah, you got on line about the time that the first David Greenwood games for windows were coming out. We sure have come along way since the days of the dos games where we didn't have a sound file playing engine like DirectX. I thought that it was very exciting when David openly here asked for input and worked on creating the first accessible live action first person shooter game. It then gave me the idea that I could try to do the same with the first accessible live action auto racing game. I can still play these live action games for hours like I used to play video games. Yeah, it may very well be an age difference thing as I am still an anti war, anti violence, long hair, peace loving hippie. Or it may be a personality difference thing. I just have never gotten into any of the D and D or other role play type of games. And of course I would never ever take my pet cat and throw it into a swimming pool just to hear it scream. BFN Jim Fighting for peace is like screaming for quiet. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.14/1247 - Release Date: 28/01/2008 10:59 AM --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Jim, Yeah, that makes a lot of sense seeing what MS Dos had to offer. I did something similar to that with my first text games for Linux. There were none of the APIs such as DirectX or even Com Audio to use in a game like there is today. Linux was much the same until a few years ago when Loki Software created SDL and made it open source for the Linux comunity. They then ported it to Mac and Windows where it enjoys some miner success as the core Sound API for python and non-Windows developers. For my text games I wrote in college such as the black jack and other card games I created for Linux I used the sox play command witch was a wav file player command similar to the Dos SBPlay.exe command. You could play wav game sounds, but nothing as detailed as DirectX or SDL offers today. Jim Kitchen wrote: Hi Thomas, Yes, but I don't know of anyone who did write their own DirectSound type API for dos games. So what PCS Games and I did was to use an external wave file player program that would work with any sound card such as Plany.exe or SbPlay.exe. I did also ship the Creative Labs program WPlay.exe for those who did have a Creative Labs sound card. But of course since the games used an external wave file player program the games were not as interactive with the sounds as we have been able to make windows games with DirectX etc. BFN --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Valiant, Jim was making reference to a comment I made a while ago about the time I tossed one of our pet cats into the swimming pool as a joke. However, you must keep in mind I wasn't doing it to be cruel, violant, or do any real harm to the cat. I was doing it as a prank. I was only say 10 years or sso when I did it, and vidio games had nothing to do with it. Valiant (on laptop) wrote: oh deer, who would take their cat and throw it into the swimming pool to hear it screech? I swear by shades of doom and them violence games where you kill kill murder and all that, but it sticks to games, never got anywhere near my head like folks claim it could. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
I LLOve the braille note keynote gold, I opt to use the keynote gold synth rather than the eloquence when I screw with the fancy m powers these days. - Original Message - From: Bryan [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 7:57 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension I don't know, I just hated the BNS voice. Maybe it's because the Echo was the first synthe I ever heard, so I've got a soft spot for it. But the BNS' voice just irritated the heck out of me. Come to think of it so does the Keynote voice, wich is one reason I don't use the Braille Note. I particularly hated it when playing some of the games you could get for the BNS. I remember there was a Chess game and a Blackjack game, but I hated them because of the voice. Granted it was sort of cool at first but after a while it just got on my nerves. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:44 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Bryan, Are you kidding? I hated the Echo's voice. I would take Braille N Speak voice over Echo any day. Though, my opinion might be based on the fact I spent a lot of time after going blind using a Braille N Speak. It was like a part of me all through school and college. You see, when I first started losing my vision the teachers first put me on the braille writer. I expressed almost from the beginning I wanted to use a computer instead of this clunky, metal, old contraption. They of course told me I needed to use it to learn braille and become a braille user. Yada, yada, yada. Well, finally I managed to get my way and the school provided me with a new device called a braille and Speak from Blazie Engineering. I used the school's for a while, and got my local Lion's club to see how wonderful a device it was so they baught me one for school and hopefully college. After I got my own BNS it went everywhere with me. On the bus, to school, to the store, on vacations, you name it. It was almost like borg implanted to my person, and I didn't give it up until I managed to get a laptop with JFW and Eloquence on it around 1998 or so. Bryan wrote: The Echo was also my first synthe Then came JFD with a Braille 'N Speak providing speech. The BNS was probably even worse than the Echo in terms of speech quality. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
as for me, I like mell, ray, rich, mike, from ATT, and from loquendo TTS I like Dave but I can't understand him all the same, I understand Kenneth but I don't like him, cackle that's what my brother's name is, heeheeheehee, let's see, I swear by ESpeak, I understand it pretty good and I like the responsiveness, but I don't get fooled about it sounding human but that wasn't the point, I like keynote gold too, easy for me to understand, I also found accent easy to understand, never used an accent, but listened to a couple of recordings and it was amazing for me. there's also dectalk, both the normal one and the one from phonix, I like both but think I prefer the ordinary one, phonix screwed up the inflection for it. I do love that roger voice that's in phonix ISpeak for pocket pc though, he rocks, not the easiest to understand though, just sounds really neat. Then there's neospeech Kate and Paul, they're both super, then there's the real speak voices, all good but I prefer tom and Daniel and lee, tom primarily, he's more responsive than the other ones are. After that, how about akapela voices, Ryan is amazing, not very responsive though. Like Alex from Mac, Ryan breathes, but not very often, but sometimes you can hear him whoosh a bit before he goes to say something. Speaking of Alex, I'm judging by podcasts, but I lve Alex too, and that one voice I talk about from hal that we can't figure out who it is, he's monotonous, but he definitely isn't synthetic, he might be a festival voice or something, but I know there's some biphone voices from orpheus so maybe that's what it is? Then there's eloquences, easiest for me to understand since I been listening to it for like 10 years almost every day, but I want to hear other voices sometimes. Flight? I really really can't get the hang of Kevin, maybe with more effort I could figure out what he's jawing at me. Then of course Braille lite and Braille n speak, sad old synth, I'd say the worse I've heard, makes lots of mistakes with pronunciations where something eloquence doesn't, and it's inflection is sad and the pitches of what it says isn't very good, it worked though, and it was probably the best when it first came out? Then there's triple talk, or is it light talk, what ever the one is that's in the blm40, and the book port, that synth is awesome, sorta hard to understand but it just rocks all the same. It's the one that's in the turbo lite talk 4.1 or what ever the version is. Oh, and say it, cackle say it is hilarious. As for games, well, I reckon Paul, and mell, ray and maybe rich would be good menu readers, but I believe characters and such should be done by peeps. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 11:26 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Dark, Yeah, I am rather fond of the Daniel voice myself. It sounds nearly human, and I do a lot of reading and game playing with that voice myself. It also sounds real good with Sound RTS which comes with a pre-recorded version of Daniel with the game. Though, I have noticed the higher quality the voice the less responsive it is. For example I really like the Neospeech voices, Kate and Paul, but they are too slow for my needs. On the other hand Espeak sounds like a robot, but I can really crank it up to super speed and get work done. Dark wrote: speaking of synths, through a rather complicated process (trying out some horribly expensive dolphin ocr and pdf conversion software to help in my Phd), I've acquired realspeak daniel. sinse it has to go through the sapi driver and can't interact directly with orphius the way something like eloquence could, I find it slightly slow to use with hal, but for all my sapi gammes I'm amazed at the amount of difference it makes in the game, especially to something with complex nmbers and a lot of speach like lone wolf, or Jim's trucker games. I was quite happy using Ms mike (and before Jim put the software on his site, ms sam), but now i actually wouldn't fancy going back to it, sinse playing with a fairly human and understandable voice means I can concentrate on what is happening in the game, and not have to imagine that my sub commander or golf caddy is a cyber man. Of course, there are lots of occasions 9as you mention tom working with free tts), where a robotic synth is necessary, which is fine, but I do think that in developing games, particularly games with acted characters or a set atmosphere, the sound of the synth voice should be taken into account as much as possible, especially when it is portraying characters in the game such as copter man, the opponents in X hour etc. Beware the Grue! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi. sounds good to me, *yyeeewhwhwhwhwhwh! rrhrhrhreee'ee'rhrhrhrwhw! oh wait rofl Yep, I hear ya - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 1:02 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Valiant, Jim was making reference to a comment I made a while ago about the time I tossed one of our pet cats into the swimming pool as a joke. However, you must keep in mind I wasn't doing it to be cruel, violant, or do any real harm to the cat. I was doing it as a prank. I was only say 10 years or sso when I did it, and vidio games had nothing to do with it. Valiant (on laptop) wrote: oh deer, who would take their cat and throw it into the swimming pool to hear it screech? I swear by shades of doom and them violence games where you kill kill murder and all that, but it sticks to games, never got anywhere near my head like folks claim it could. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
I love that decktalk voice- I sware by it, even though its hard to understand for some people, I can read at top speed on the book port and I find it easy to understand. Tyler - Original Message - From: Valiant (on laptop) [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, January 29, 2008 3:38 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension as for me, I like mell, ray, rich, mike, from ATT, and from loquendo TTS I like Dave but I can't understand him all the same, I understand Kenneth but I don't like him, cackle that's what my brother's name is, heeheeheehee, let's see, I swear by ESpeak, I understand it pretty good and I like the responsiveness, but I don't get fooled about it sounding human but that wasn't the point, I like keynote gold too, easy for me to understand, I also found accent easy to understand, never used an accent, but listened to a couple of recordings and it was amazing for me. there's also dectalk, both the normal one and the one from phonix, I like both but think I prefer the ordinary one, phonix screwed up the inflection for it. I do love that roger voice that's in phonix ISpeak for pocket pc though, he rocks, not the easiest to understand though, just sounds really neat. Then there's neospeech Kate and Paul, they're both super, then there's the real speak voices, all good but I prefer tom and Daniel and lee, tom primarily, he's more responsive than the other ones are. After that, how about akapela voices, Ryan is amazing, not very responsive though. Like Alex from Mac, Ryan breathes, but not very often, but sometimes you can hear him whoosh a bit before he goes to say something. Speaking of Alex, I'm judging by podcasts, but I lve Alex too, and that one voice I talk about from hal that we can't figure out who it is, he's monotonous, but he definitely isn't synthetic, he might be a festival voice or something, but I know there's some biphone voices from orpheus so maybe that's what it is? Then there's eloquences, easiest for me to understand since I been listening to it for like 10 years almost every day, but I want to hear other voices sometimes. Flight? I really really can't get the hang of Kevin, maybe with more effort I could figure out what he's jawing at me. Then of course Braille lite and Braille n speak, sad old synth, I'd say the worse I've heard, makes lots of mistakes with pronunciations where something eloquence doesn't, and it's inflection is sad and the pitches of what it says isn't very good, it worked though, and it was probably the best when it first came out? Then there's triple talk, or is it light talk, what ever the one is that's in the blm40, and the book port, that synth is awesome, sorta hard to understand but it just rocks all the same. It's the one that's in the turbo lite talk 4.1 or what ever the version is. Oh, and say it, cackle say it is hilarious. As for games, well, I reckon Paul, and mell, ray and maybe rich would be good menu readers, but I believe characters and such should be done by peeps. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 11:26 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Dark, Yeah, I am rather fond of the Daniel voice myself. It sounds nearly human, and I do a lot of reading and game playing with that voice myself. It also sounds real good with Sound RTS which comes with a pre-recorded version of Daniel with the game. Though, I have noticed the higher quality the voice the less responsive it is. For example I really like the Neospeech voices, Kate and Paul, but they are too slow for my needs. On the other hand Espeak sounds like a robot, but I can really crank it up to super speed and get work done. Dark wrote: speaking of synths, through a rather complicated process (trying out some horribly expensive dolphin ocr and pdf conversion software to help in my Phd), I've acquired realspeak daniel. sinse it has to go through the sapi driver and can't interact directly with orphius the way something like eloquence could, I find it slightly slow to use with hal, but for all my sapi gammes I'm amazed at the amount of difference it makes in the game, especially to something with complex nmbers and a lot of speach like lone wolf, or Jim's trucker games. I was quite happy using Ms mike (and before Jim put the software on his site, ms sam), but now i actually wouldn't fancy going back to it, sinse playing with a fairly human and understandable voice means I can concentrate on what is happening in the game, and not have to imagine that my sub commander or golf caddy is a cyber man. Of course, there are lots of occasions 9as you mention tom working with free tts), where a robotic synth is necessary, which is fine, but I do think that in
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Well I use those games to kill stress. I'd never transfer that to the real world. I suppose if you played games every day without doing anythingelse bar that literally you could probably have a gaming world as real world I suppose, or your life was just games and nothing else bar games and maybe violent movies. But you would have to be really messed up or just weird for that to happen I recon, unless you had p or other drug, and got drunk or something like that. And its not like our games don't have a recomended age thing like everything else. At 02:28 a.m. 30/01/2008, you wrote: oh deer, who would take their cat and throw it into the swimming pool to hear it screech? I swear by shades of doom and them violence games where you kill kill murder and all that, but it sticks to games, never got anywhere near my head like folks claim it could. - Original Message - From: Jim Kitchen [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Thomas Ward Gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Tuesday, January 22, 2008 6:26 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Thomas, That's cool that you wrote and played your own text card and board games. As you said for programming practice and so that you could play the games. That really was why I wrote them as well. I mean because I wanted to play them and at that time there were not any games like that that were accessible. It was like back in like 1990 that I first got on line and got into the FidoNet Email lists such as Blink Talk and Blind Talk. That and searching the BBSs was how I found that there was a need to share the games that I was producing for my own playability. It sure was nice to be able to share the games and find out that others appreciated them. You said What I was trying to point out was that for me I was extremely disappointed that back in 99 or so when I first joined this comunity most of the discussion centered around card games, board games, and Ok, it just sounded to me like you were saying that games like that were useless and people shouldn't even waste time making them because no one would even want to play them. Yeah, you got on line about the time that the first David Greenwood games for windows were coming out. We sure have come along way since the days of the dos games where we didn't have a sound file playing engine like DirectX. I thought that it was very exciting when David openly here asked for input and worked on creating the first accessible live action first person shooter game. It then gave me the idea that I could try to do the same with the first accessible live action auto racing game. I can still play these live action games for hours like I used to play video games. Yeah, it may very well be an age difference thing as I am still an anti war, anti violence, long hair, peace loving hippie. Or it may be a personality difference thing. I just have never gotten into any of the D and D or other role play type of games. And of course I would never ever take my pet cat and throw it into a swimming pool just to hear it scream. BFN Jim Fighting for peace is like screaming for quiet. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Personally, I think age restrictions should be advisery at most. I was playing games like Mortal Kombat (with fatalities), at age 9, watched aliens, Terminator and robocop at age ten, even played them with my best friend with either action figures or dressing up. in fact by the age of eleven I was quite a fan of ninja films. And obviously I had no urge to impale people with swords or anything like that, - besides, cleavers are much more fun and easier to clean afterwards, - ;D. Seriously as has been said, it's so dependent upon the individual, that I really would reduce age restrictions to simply something for parents to check should they wish to, and not mandatory laws as they are, say when wrenting videos or on the Tv watershed. Just my thoughts. Beware the Grue! Dark. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
the first voice I had was the keynote gold, i did hear a pc pluss and it sounded like a robot chewing gum. I then got a dolphin gemini and then orpheus. At 01:57 p.m. 28/01/2008, you wrote: I don't know, I just hated the BNS voice. Maybe it's because the Echo was the first synthe I ever heard, so I've got a soft spot for it. But the BNS' voice just irritated the heck out of me. Come to think of it so does the Keynote voice, wich is one reason I don't use the Braille Note. I particularly hated it when playing some of the games you could get for the BNS. I remember there was a Chess game and a Blackjack game, but I hated them because of the voice. Granted it was sort of cool at first but after a while it just got on my nerves. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:44 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Bryan, Are you kidding? I hated the Echo's voice. I would take Braille N Speak voice over Echo any day. Though, my opinion might be based on the fact I spent a lot of time after going blind using a Braille N Speak. It was like a part of me all through school and college. You see, when I first started losing my vision the teachers first put me on the braille writer. I expressed almost from the beginning I wanted to use a computer instead of this clunky, metal, old contraption. They of course told me I needed to use it to learn braille and become a braille user. Yada, yada, yada. Well, finally I managed to get my way and the school provided me with a new device called a braille and Speak from Blazie Engineering. I used the school's for a while, and got my local Lion's club to see how wonderful a device it was so they baught me one for school and hopefully college. After I got my own BNS it went everywhere with me. On the bus, to school, to the store, on vacations, you name it. It was almost like borg implanted to my person, and I didn't give it up until I managed to get a laptop with JFW and Eloquence on it around 1998 or so. Bryan wrote: The Echo was also my first synthe Then came JFD with a Braille 'N Speak providing speech. The BNS was probably even worse than the Echo in terms of speech quality. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Thomas, Yeah I think that I might have had my Atari 800 xl in 1984. Can't remember exactly what year it was. I even get mixed up on which games I played on the Atari 2600 and which ones I played on the 800 XL. But I was programming games using the Microsoft Extended Basic cartridge. The Atari being a game computer had better sound ability. It had a four channel sound mixer where as the IBM compatible computers only had a single channel. The Commodore 64 which was out at the same time as the Atari 800 XL had a built in sound synthesizer. That might have been cool to learn to use for game sounds, but I went with the Atari instead. I always felt that the IBM machines could have done more with sound. Finally they did when they added a sound card. BFN Jim As easy as 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716 ( PI ) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Well, here, I like AT T Rich and Mell, although I do like scansoft voices such as Tom and Daniel. Lee is good too. The akepella voices though, are some of the best in the world, so I heard? Tyler - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 10:26 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Dark, Yeah, I am rather fond of the Daniel voice myself. It sounds nearly human, and I do a lot of reading and game playing with that voice myself. It also sounds real good with Sound RTS which comes with a pre-recorded version of Daniel with the game. Though, I have noticed the higher quality the voice the less responsive it is. For example I really like the Neospeech voices, Kate and Paul, but they are too slow for my needs. On the other hand Espeak sounds like a robot, but I can really crank it up to super speed and get work done. Dark wrote: speaking of synths, through a rather complicated process (trying out some horribly expensive dolphin ocr and pdf conversion software to help in my Phd), I've acquired realspeak daniel. sinse it has to go through the sapi driver and can't interact directly with orphius the way something like eloquence could, I find it slightly slow to use with hal, but for all my sapi gammes I'm amazed at the amount of difference it makes in the game, especially to something with complex nmbers and a lot of speach like lone wolf, or Jim's trucker games. I was quite happy using Ms mike (and before Jim put the software on his site, ms sam), but now i actually wouldn't fancy going back to it, sinse playing with a fairly human and understandable voice means I can concentrate on what is happening in the game, and not have to imagine that my sub commander or golf caddy is a cyber man. Of course, there are lots of occasions 9as you mention tom working with free tts), where a robotic synth is necessary, which is fine, but I do think that in developing games, particularly games with acted characters or a set atmosphere, the sound of the synth voice should be taken into account as much as possible, especially when it is portraying characters in the game such as copter man, the opponents in X hour etc. Beware the Grue! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.14/1247 - Release Date: 28/01/2008 10:59 AM --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Dark, Oh, Daniel is quite responsive on my laptop. I was just trying to point out that some of the other high quality human sounding voices don't work quite as well as the more robotic sounding voices. Dark wrote: Hmmm, I only thought the unresponsiveness with daniel was caused by orphius having to run through Sapi, maybe not. I must ring dolphin and see if I can configure Hal so as to use orphius for speaking while writing, and screen navigation, but Daniel while in continuous document read, so that I can enjoy what I'm reading. Unfortunately though, sinse Daniel runs through sapi and not directly through orphius the way some other synth voices do I don't think this will be possible. Stil, i might try one of the sapi enabled readers, I've always fancied Hp lovecraft (available from wikipedia), but found the experience of trying to read weerd horor with orphius and alan not to work very well. Beware the Grue! Dark. - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Ah, well I'll, well in that case I'll probably have words with dolphin about it, maybe they have an orphius driver for realspeak instead of going through sapi (I'd assume they do as they supplied me with it). Beware the Grue! Dark. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 5:58 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Dark, Oh, Daniel is quite responsive on my laptop. I was just trying to point out that some of the other high quality human sounding voices don't work quite as well as the more robotic sounding voices. Dark wrote: Hmmm, I only thought the unresponsiveness with daniel was caused by orphius having to run through Sapi, maybe not. I must ring dolphin and see if I can configure Hal so as to use orphius for speaking while writing, and screen navigation, but Daniel while in continuous document read, so that I can enjoy what I'm reading. Unfortunately though, sinse Daniel runs through sapi and not directly through orphius the way some other synth voices do I don't think this will be possible. Stil, i might try one of the sapi enabled readers, I've always fancied Hp lovecraft (available from wikipedia), but found the experience of trying to read weerd horor with orphius and alan not to work very well. Beware the Grue! Dark. - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.13/1246 - Release Date: 27/01/2008 18:39 --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi, Yeah, the older IBM systems had poor quality sound up until Creative Labs created the Soundblaster sound cards. Especially, the Soundblaster 16 was a huge leap forward for sound on the IBM platforms. Though, ironically allot of games for IBM's didn't have sound or high quality sound until MS introduced DirectX for Windows 95. Before that to support a soundcard a developer had to create their own DirectSound type API to support the sound cards. Which most often they only supported Soundblaster and Soundblaster compatible cards. Everyone else was out of luck. As for the Comidor 64 I got to tinker with them growing up, but I never owned one. I would have really liked to had a chanse to explore them further back then. Now, days you might be able to find one on Ebay as an antique. Lol! Jim Kitchen wrote: Hi Thomas, Yeah I think that I might have had my Atari 800 xl in 1984. Can't remember exactly what year it was. I even get mixed up on which games I played on the Atari 2600 and which ones I played on the 800 XL. But I was programming games using the Microsoft Extended Basic cartridge. The Atari being a game computer had better sound ability. It had a four channel sound mixer where as the IBM compatible computers only had a single channel. The Commodore 64 which was out at the same time as the Atari 800 XL had a built in sound synthesizer. That might have been cool to learn to use for game sounds, but I went with the Atari instead. I always felt that the IBM machines could have done more with sound. Finally they did when they added a sound card. BFN Jim As easy as 3.14159265358979323846264338327950288419716 ( PI ) [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
The first voice would've been windows bridge for me, although in terms of portability it was the braille lite 18. I loved it, and stil do today- I stil read books on it, in fact. Tyler - Original Message - From: shaun everiss [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Monday, January 28, 2008 2:59 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension the first voice I had was the keynote gold, i did hear a pc pluss and it sounded like a robot chewing gum. I then got a dolphin gemini and then orpheus. At 01:57 p.m. 28/01/2008, you wrote: I don't know, I just hated the BNS voice. Maybe it's because the Echo was the first synthe I ever heard, so I've got a soft spot for it. But the BNS' voice just irritated the heck out of me. Come to think of it so does the Keynote voice, wich is one reason I don't use the Braille Note. I particularly hated it when playing some of the games you could get for the BNS. I remember there was a Chess game and a Blackjack game, but I hated them because of the voice. Granted it was sort of cool at first but after a while it just got on my nerves. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:44 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Bryan, Are you kidding? I hated the Echo's voice. I would take Braille N Speak voice over Echo any day. Though, my opinion might be based on the fact I spent a lot of time after going blind using a Braille N Speak. It was like a part of me all through school and college. You see, when I first started losing my vision the teachers first put me on the braille writer. I expressed almost from the beginning I wanted to use a computer instead of this clunky, metal, old contraption. They of course told me I needed to use it to learn braille and become a braille user. Yada, yada, yada. Well, finally I managed to get my way and the school provided me with a new device called a braille and Speak from Blazie Engineering. I used the school's for a while, and got my local Lion's club to see how wonderful a device it was so they baught me one for school and hopefully college. After I got my own BNS it went everywhere with me. On the bus, to school, to the store, on vacations, you name it. It was almost like borg implanted to my person, and I didn't give it up until I managed to get a laptop with JFW and Eloquence on it around 1998 or so. Bryan wrote: The Echo was also my first synthe Then came JFD with a Braille 'N Speak providing speech. The BNS was probably even worse than the Echo in terms of speech quality. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.5.516 / Virus Database: 269.19.14/1247 - Release Date: 28/01/2008 10:59 AM --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Dark, Yeah, I am rather fond of the Daniel voice myself. It sounds nearly human, and I do a lot of reading and game playing with that voice myself. It also sounds real good with Sound RTS which comes with a pre-recorded version of Daniel with the game. Though, I have noticed the higher quality the voice the less responsive it is. For example I really like the Neospeech voices, Kate and Paul, but they are too slow for my needs. On the other hand Espeak sounds like a robot, but I can really crank it up to super speed and get work done. Dark wrote: speaking of synths, through a rather complicated process (trying out some horribly expensive dolphin ocr and pdf conversion software to help in my Phd), I've acquired realspeak daniel. sinse it has to go through the sapi driver and can't interact directly with orphius the way something like eloquence could, I find it slightly slow to use with hal, but for all my sapi gammes I'm amazed at the amount of difference it makes in the game, especially to something with complex nmbers and a lot of speach like lone wolf, or Jim's trucker games. I was quite happy using Ms mike (and before Jim put the software on his site, ms sam), but now i actually wouldn't fancy going back to it, sinse playing with a fairly human and understandable voice means I can concentrate on what is happening in the game, and not have to imagine that my sub commander or golf caddy is a cyber man. Of course, there are lots of occasions 9as you mention tom working with free tts), where a robotic synth is necessary, which is fine, but I do think that in developing games, particularly games with acted characters or a set atmosphere, the sound of the synth voice should be taken into account as much as possible, especially when it is portraying characters in the game such as copter man, the opponents in X hour etc. Beware the Grue! --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hmmm, I only thought the unresponsiveness with daniel was caused by orphius having to run through Sapi, maybe not. I must ring dolphin and see if I can configure Hal so as to use orphius for speaking while writing, and screen navigation, but Daniel while in continuous document read, so that I can enjoy what I'm reading. Unfortunately though, sinse Daniel runs through sapi and not directly through orphius the way some other synth voices do I don't think this will be possible. Stil, i might try one of the sapi enabled readers, I've always fancied Hp lovecraft (available from wikipedia), but found the experience of trying to read weerd horor with orphius and alan not to work very well. Beware the Grue! Dark. - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Jim, Wow! I wasn't even using computers in 1981 let alone programming them. Grin That just goes to show how far we have come since the first personal computers made their appearance for the average person. I can clearly remember what it was like back around 1984 when there were basically two choices. There was the IBM PC with PC Dos 3.x, AKA MS Dos, and the Apple A2-E with Apple Works. In terms of the average user the people I knew had Apples because the IBM systems were both too expensive and anything before PC Dos 5.0 sucked lemons. Not only that, but I thought the Echo was just peachy until I found Jaws for Dos and the Dectalk PC. As for when I started writing games I was a late bloomer. I have been using and working with computers almost all my life, but I didn't actually begin programming until I reached college. That would have been around 1997 or 1998 or so. Jim Kitchen wrote: Hi Thomas, Yeah, I started writing computer video games like in 1981 on a Texas Instruments 99 4A home computer. The first games were draw poker, Star Mule and Homer on a Harley (Eval Kneval) I then got my first talking computer in December of 1989. It was a NEC 286 with an Accent S A running Jaws for dos version 1. The first program that I wrote was a braille reference guide. I wrote it in January 1990 while at the Cleveland Sight Center. Anna Karr my braille instructor helped me to make sure that it was all correct. Then I wrote black jack and draw poker. Those games were on the Jaws web site slash BBS. No, I did not like the bookshelf game Futile. I very much liked the bookshelf game Twixt though. I think that my Brother and Sister cheated at Futile because they couldn't beat me at chess or Twixt. grin BFN Jim check my web site for my new personal information page [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
The Echo was also my first synthe Then came JFD with a Braille 'N Speak providing speech. The BNS was probably even worse than the Echo in terms of speech quality. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 7:01 AM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Jim, Wow! I wasn't even using computers in 1981 let alone programming them. Grin That just goes to show how far we have come since the first personal computers made their appearance for the average person. I can clearly remember what it was like back around 1984 when there were basically two choices. There was the IBM PC with PC Dos 3.x, AKA MS Dos, and the Apple A2-E with Apple Works. In terms of the average user the people I knew had Apples because the IBM systems were both too expensive and anything before PC Dos 5.0 sucked lemons. Not only that, but I thought the Echo was just peachy until I found Jaws for Dos and the Dectalk PC. As for when I started writing games I was a late bloomer. I have been using and working with computers almost all my life, but I didn't actually begin programming until I reached college. That would have been around 1997 or 1998 or so. Jim Kitchen wrote: Hi Thomas, Yeah, I started writing computer video games like in 1981 on a Texas Instruments 99 4A home computer. The first games were draw poker, Star Mule and Homer on a Harley (Eval Kneval) I then got my first talking computer in December of 1989. It was a NEC 286 with an Accent S A running Jaws for dos version 1. The first program that I wrote was a braille reference guide. I wrote it in January 1990 while at the Cleveland Sight Center. Anna Karr my braille instructor helped me to make sure that it was all correct. Then I wrote black jack and draw poker. Those games were on the Jaws web site slash BBS. No, I did not like the bookshelf game Futile. I very much liked the bookshelf game Twixt though. I think that my Brother and Sister cheated at Futile because they couldn't beat me at chess or Twixt. grin BFN Jim check my web site for my new personal information page [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
I don't know, I just hated the BNS voice. Maybe it's because the Echo was the first synthe I ever heard, so I've got a soft spot for it. But the BNS' voice just irritated the heck out of me. Come to think of it so does the Keynote voice, wich is one reason I don't use the Braille Note. I particularly hated it when playing some of the games you could get for the BNS. I remember there was a Chess game and a Blackjack game, but I hated them because of the voice. Granted it was sort of cool at first but after a while it just got on my nerves. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - From: Thomas Ward [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Gamers Discussion list gamers@audyssey.org Sent: Sunday, January 27, 2008 5:44 PM Subject: Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension Hi Bryan, Are you kidding? I hated the Echo's voice. I would take Braille N Speak voice over Echo any day. Though, my opinion might be based on the fact I spent a lot of time after going blind using a Braille N Speak. It was like a part of me all through school and college. You see, when I first started losing my vision the teachers first put me on the braille writer. I expressed almost from the beginning I wanted to use a computer instead of this clunky, metal, old contraption. They of course told me I needed to use it to learn braille and become a braille user. Yada, yada, yada. Well, finally I managed to get my way and the school provided me with a new device called a braille and Speak from Blazie Engineering. I used the school's for a while, and got my local Lion's club to see how wonderful a device it was so they baught me one for school and hopefully college. After I got my own BNS it went everywhere with me. On the bus, to school, to the store, on vacations, you name it. It was almost like borg implanted to my person, and I didn't give it up until I managed to get a laptop with JFW and Eloquence on it around 1998 or so. Bryan wrote: The Echo was also my first synthe Then came JFD with a Braille 'N Speak providing speech. The BNS was probably even worse than the Echo in terms of speech quality. Time is an illusion, lunchtime doubly so. - Original Message - --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
I didn't know much about it all until I stumbled on to it in about 1996. I was on the old now dead henrichson site and found all these files called audxx.zip where the xx was the number of the issue. I was borred enough to download it all and read all 21 or so issues, actually I think at that time there were something like 16-17 issues. I got on the mail lists and I was with the crowd upto electronic distrobutions on email. Ok I have had my ups and downs, I've seen entire hacker and comunity battles, I've even taken the wrong side and things, my track record hasn't been the best shell we say but it seems ok I think for the last year at least maybe 2. I'm interested for the audacity mag though to now we are in 2008 that we should have a history of the mag, where it came from and where it was going to go to. I also think we are ready to go to the next step of the mag, that being audio recordings of it, each dev etc says their bit, interviews over skype or whatever are recorded if possible etc. I don't have much hardware and I probably will have to use quickmix loads, and speech will come in to the mag but we are not exactly a pro mag. I'd be happy to produce this as long as all audio bits came to me in the right time, I am thinking to do some tech thing, I can use mediafire for uploading, I mean I doubt we will use loads and loads of files, however. I do understand that you may have to have a text version and for articles that can not be recorded in audio I can read the things out with speech synths in notepad. I don't want people to put themselves out though. Oh Before I forget I am probably going to not put the emails and letters in as its probably going to be a real pain ofcause if some of you that send letters can record voice wise great. If not I can probably read those to. I am probably going to get a job soon but except for the x-sight testing and maybe other tests I have nothing else to do. I am also thinking about doing a podcast of this thing maybe. I don't know if I should set up something on net radio or what, or what is best. My origional idea was to send via mediafire or usendit the link to the completed mp3 then if someone wanted to broadcast/ podcast they could. I accept that I probably will not replace the text version of the mag at least not in the short term. What does everyone think of this. Hi, Quote It was like back in like 1990 that I first got on line and got into the FidoNet Email lists such as Blink Talk and Blind Talk. That and searching the BBSs was how I found that there was a need to share the games that I was producing for my own playability. End quote Wow! I wasn't even aware you had been writing games that long. Though, back in 1990 I still had some useful vision, and was still playing Super NES and other games of that era. I didn't write my first text game until 1998, and at that time I didn't even know there was an Audyssey comunity. Like allot of others in the general blind comunity I didn't even know there was an Audyssey mag, list, and games out there for us. So I wrote some black jack, hangman, and other games thinking I was the first to come up with the idea. It was only after I discovered Audyssey that I learned there were others out here with the same thoughts and ideas I had. Quote Ok, it just sounded to me like you were saying that games like that were useless and people shouldn't even waste time making them because no one would even want to play them. End quote No, actually card games, board games, and word puzzles are still in high demand. I recently ran a poll on the Mac Visionaries mailing list and the majority of requests were for games similar to your Casino and Monopoly games. Mac users seamed less interested in First Person, Side-Scrollers, and other action style games I generally like to play. As it so happens the card, board, and word puzzle games are about the easiest types of games for me to create so I am not at all unhappy they requested something easier to design. The First Person games like Tomb Rader and the Racing simulations like Raceway requires allot of jeometry and real time physics which is allot more work than just a puzzle or board game. As it happens there are a few board games that are really cool that have never been created in accessible format such as Dark World, Battle Masters, and Futile. probably not your style of game, but they are basically games dealing with Knights, Footman, Dwarfs, Goblins, Skeleton Warriors, etc played out on battle fields. I have always been a fan of the strategy style board games. Large and small skale military campaigns and things like that. Quote We sure have come along way since the days of the dos games where we didn't have a sound file playing engine like DirectX. I thought that it was very exciting when David openly here asked for input and worked on creating the first accessible live action first person shooter game. End quote Yes, DirectX
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Thomas, Yeah, I started writing computer video games like in 1981 on a Texas Instruments 99 4A home computer. The first games were draw poker, Star Mule and Homer on a Harley (Eval Kneval) I then got my first talking computer in December of 1989. It was a NEC 286 with an Accent S A running Jaws for dos version 1. The first program that I wrote was a braille reference guide. I wrote it in January 1990 while at the Cleveland Sight Center. Anna Karr my braille instructor helped me to make sure that it was all correct. Then I wrote black jack and draw poker. Those games were on the Jaws web site slash BBS. No, I did not like the bookshelf game Futile. I very much liked the bookshelf game Twixt though. I think that my Brother and Sister cheated at Futile because they couldn't beat me at chess or Twixt. grin BFN Jim check my web site for my new personal information page [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Thomas, Yeah, I started writing computer video games like in 1981 on a Texas Instruments 99 4A home computer. The first games were draw poker, Star Mule and Homer on a Harley (Eval Kneval) I then got my first talking computer in December of 1989. It was a NEC 286 with an Accent S A running Jaws for dos version 1. The first program that I wrote was a braille reference guide. I wrote it in January 1990 while at the Cleveland Sight Center. Anna Karr my braille instructor helped me to make sure that it was all correct. Then I wrote black jack and draw poker. Those games were on the Jaws web site slash BBS. No, I did not like the bookshelf game Futile. I very much liked the bookshelf game Twixt though. I think that my Brother and Sister cheated at Futile because they couldn't beat me at chess or Twixt. grin BFN Jim check my web site for my new personal information page [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Shaun, I don't think creating an audio based Audyssey magazine is all that good an idea. For one thing I enjoy reading the articles, and you can fit allot more content into a magazine rather than an audio style podcast. For another have you ever considdered the size of an audio based Audyssey magazine? I know some of the blind tech podcasts are large enough, and a magazine of any size at all would be huge. Finally, when you record articles and interviews that is a podcast not a magazine. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi Thomas, That's cool that you wrote and played your own text card and board games. As you said for programming practice and so that you could play the games. That really was why I wrote them as well. I mean because I wanted to play them and at that time there were not any games like that that were accessible. It was like back in like 1990 that I first got on line and got into the FidoNet Email lists such as Blink Talk and Blind Talk. That and searching the BBSs was how I found that there was a need to share the games that I was producing for my own playability. It sure was nice to be able to share the games and find out that others appreciated them. You said What I was trying to point out was that for me I was extremely disappointed that back in 99 or so when I first joined this comunity most of the discussion centered around card games, board games, and Ok, it just sounded to me like you were saying that games like that were useless and people shouldn't even waste time making them because no one would even want to play them. Yeah, you got on line about the time that the first David Greenwood games for windows were coming out. We sure have come along way since the days of the dos games where we didn't have a sound file playing engine like DirectX. I thought that it was very exciting when David openly here asked for input and worked on creating the first accessible live action first person shooter game. It then gave me the idea that I could try to do the same with the first accessible live action auto racing game. I can still play these live action games for hours like I used to play video games. Yeah, it may very well be an age difference thing as I am still an anti war, anti violence, long hair, peace loving hippie. Or it may be a personality difference thing. I just have never gotten into any of the D and D or other role play type of games. And of course I would never ever take my pet cat and throw it into a swimming pool just to hear it scream. BFN Jim Fighting for peace is like screaming for quiet. [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.kitchensinc.net (440) 286-6920 Chardon Ohio USA --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: [Audyssey] Views On Games was Out of the games dimension
Hi, Quote It was like back in like 1990 that I first got on line and got into the FidoNet Email lists such as Blink Talk and Blind Talk. That and searching the BBSs was how I found that there was a need to share the games that I was producing for my own playability. End quote Wow! I wasn't even aware you had been writing games that long. Though, back in 1990 I still had some useful vision, and was still playing Super NES and other games of that era. I didn't write my first text game until 1998, and at that time I didn't even know there was an Audyssey comunity. Like allot of others in the general blind comunity I didn't even know there was an Audyssey mag, list, and games out there for us. So I wrote some black jack, hangman, and other games thinking I was the first to come up with the idea. It was only after I discovered Audyssey that I learned there were others out here with the same thoughts and ideas I had. Quote Ok, it just sounded to me like you were saying that games like that were useless and people shouldn't even waste time making them because no one would even want to play them. End quote No, actually card games, board games, and word puzzles are still in high demand. I recently ran a poll on the Mac Visionaries mailing list and the majority of requests were for games similar to your Casino and Monopoly games. Mac users seamed less interested in First Person, Side-Scrollers, and other action style games I generally like to play. As it so happens the card, board, and word puzzle games are about the easiest types of games for me to create so I am not at all unhappy they requested something easier to design. The First Person games like Tomb Rader and the Racing simulations like Raceway requires allot of jeometry and real time physics which is allot more work than just a puzzle or board game. As it happens there are a few board games that are really cool that have never been created in accessible format such as Dark World, Battle Masters, and Futile. probably not your style of game, but they are basically games dealing with Knights, Footman, Dwarfs, Goblins, Skeleton Warriors, etc played out on battle fields. I have always been a fan of the strategy style board games. Large and small skale military campaigns and things like that. Quote We sure have come along way since the days of the dos games where we didn't have a sound file playing engine like DirectX. I thought that it was very exciting when David openly here asked for input and worked on creating the first accessible live action first person shooter game. End quote Yes, DirectX really revolutionised both the sighted and accessible games market in a way that is still dificult to match today. I look at what is possible with DirectX in games like Shades of Doom 1.2, and I am having difficulties finding alternative solutions that equals DirectX in a feature by feature comparison. When GMA released Shades of Doom I realised my plans to creat the kinds of games I wanted to make was not only possible but was already happening. Obviously, I haven't been as quick on getting my own games out, but I know now that when I get ready to do them all the technologies and means are there. Quote Yeah, it may very well be an age difference thing as I am still an anti war, anti violence, long hair, peace loving hippie. Or it may be a personality difference thing. I just have never gotten into any of the D and D or other role play type of games. And of course I would never ever take my pet cat and throw it into a swimming pool just to hear it scream. End quote Lol! Well, as for the cat you got me there. All I can say is I was a bit of a roudy kid. Some might call it ornery. As for the difference in opinion who really knows? All humans have there own individual likes and dislikes, and no one was cut from the same cookie cuttter. All one needs to do is watch the election debates going on between the various canidates and the poll numbers constantly seam to be shifting from week to week to see how differing opinions can be between people. Some canidates have stronger support in some states better than others. --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
