RCEVH Screen Reader v2 (March 1987) help guide (*TYPE S.Reader)



>*.
Talk.s Mar87 (87)
Drive 0             Option 3 (EXEC)
Dir. :0.$           Lib. :0.$

    !BOOT    L          Config   L 
    Demo     L          NewBaud  L 
    SCprogS  L          SCramS   L 
    Update   L 

  S.Reader   L        S.Reader1  L 
  S.Reader2  L 


>*TYPE S.Reader
Documentation for SCREEN READER

BBC B with disc drive
Documentation version 2
Disc version 2

RESEARCH CENTRE FOR THE EDUCATION
OF THE VISUALLY HANDICAPPED
Faculty of Education 
University of Birmingham

CONTENTS

Introduction

Using the disc

Getting to grips with the program

Appendix A - The commands available

Appendix B - The program CONFIG

Appendix C - Sideways RAM version

TARGET AUDIENCE 

The blind who wish to use or access the information on the computer
screen using synthetic speech.

INTRODUCTION

Essentially this program acts as a "front end" to the BBC micro. It will
enable all keys pressed to be spoken as characters, as whole words, or not
at all. It will also allow a user to move a "speech cursor" around to read
the text anywhere on the computer screen.

This program can be used so that a blind user can program in BASIC using
the synthetic speech to check what they have entered.  Alternatively, it
can be used when running other people's BASIC programs.  The program will
also work with many of the commercial programs which are currently
available on ROM.  The basic version of ScreenReader does, however, take
up some of the computer's memory which prevents it from working with
certain programs. There is a version which runs in Sideways RAM (see
Appendix C below) which  does not take up any memory from existing
programs. If you wish to exploit this program fully then Sideways RAM is a
useful addition to your computer.

NOTES: 
1. This program has also been tested with the Acorn 6502, Acorn Z80 and
Torch Z80 2nd processors.

2. This program is very flexible and allows it's mode of operation to be
configured for a suitable speech synthesiser and for particular programs. 
This does mean that some of the facilities are not trivial to use and may
take a little time to get used to.

3. A version of this program which works with the WINDOW display is also
available.

4. Specific versions of this program are also available for the word
processor WORDWISE(-PLUS) and the spread-sheet INTER-SHEET.

5. Updates from the previous version of ScreenReader can be found in the
file UPDATE which is on the ScreenReader disc.



Any comments/criticisms/suggestions on this package are most welcome and
should be addressed to:

Research Centre for the Education of the Visually Handicapped,
Selly Wick House,
59 Selly Wick Road,
Birmingham, B29 7JE

We hope this disc is useful.

NOTE: The programs on this disc will not work without a disc drive
      which is thus ESSENTIAL.

The materials in this package should NOT be distributed and all enquiries
concerning them should be referred to the Research Centre.

This program is based on some work which was done by Alan Hadley and Peter
Jones of St. Dunstans.

USING THE DISC 

1. Switch on the computer, monitor and disc drive(s).
2. Insert the appropriate disc into the disc drive and close the drive
   door.
3. Press the <SHIFT> key then, while still depressing the <SHIFT>
   key, press   the <BREAK> key. Release the <BREAK> key, and then
   release the <SHIFT> key.
4. This sequence will load in the ScreenReader code from the disc and
   will take you into BASIC.
   The program is now loaded and you can start using BASIC or any
   other program.

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH THE PROGRAM  

This section will take you through the first stages of using the
ScreenReader program. There are lots of beeps and buzzes in this program.
Don't worry if you find them confusing at the start - they are intended to
give some kind of extra information.  Nor should you worry if you find the
speech difficult to understand at first. That comes with time and you are
going to come across some commands which will make reading the information
with synthetic speech easier. This section does not deal with all of the
features of this program. It is just intended to get you started.  You are
referred to the Appendices for detailed desciptions of the facilities
available.

NOTES: 
1. Most of the commands have been put onto keys so that some kind of
   sense is made of the character, eg. "T" for top of screen.
2. When you press "DELETE" the computer will say DELETE followed by
   the character to the left of the cursor.  In most cases this will
   be what you have deleted. (Some programs use the delete key for
   other purposes which ScreenReader will not be aware of.)

TO BEGIN:
Start up the disc as in "Using the program" above.  ScreenReader is now
loaded into the computer.  What is needed now is some text on the screen
to practice using ScreenReader with. There is a program on the disc which
will let you do this. It is called DEMO. Type CHAIN"DEMO" and then press
the RETURN key to get the demonstration program into the computer and run
it.

What the program DEMO does is to put some text onto the top few lines and
onto the bottom line of the screen.  It also allows you to type in text a
line at a time which appears on line seven of the screen. The first thing
to do is to practice ScreenReading. Pressing the TAB key will take you out
of whatever program you are running and into ScreenReading.   Do that now
- press the TAB key.  The synthesiser will say ScreenReading.  You will
also hear a beep. That beep  gives you some indication as to where you are
on the screen (by it's pitch).

What you can do now is to move a "speech cursor" around the screen and
send text at the speech cursor to the speech synthesiser.  Press the "T"
(for top) key. You will hear a two-tone beep. The first tone gives an
indication of the line where you first came into ScreenReader, the second
beep gives an indication of the current line (which is the top line of the
screen).  Now pressing the "L" key will read out the current line of text.
Try that now.  It should say "This is the top line." It will also give
another two-tone beep.  This beep happens every time that you move down a
line on the screen.  Press "L" again and the next line of the screen will
be spoken.  Keep pressing "L" to work your way down the screen. When you
get to the bottom the computer will keep on beeping you to tell you that
there is nowhere else to go. So far you have learnt "T" for top of the
page and "L" to read a line of text.  Extra commands for moving up and
down the screen by lines are "U" for up a line, "D" for down a line and
"B" for bottom of the screen. Press "T" to go to the top of the screen
then try using these commands to move around and read lines on the screen.

The next commands to learn are how to move around the screen a word at a
time. Use the commands that you already know to get the speech cursor to
one of the lines on the screen containing text.  Now press the "W" (for word) key two or three times slowly.  You will read the text a word at a
time. Now press the "Q" key. This is to the left of the "W" (for word) key
and takes you back a word. Practice reading words with "W" and then going
back with "Q" and read them again.

NOTES: 
1. Whereas "W" will read a word and then go onto the next line (if
   appropriate) "Q" will not go back a word to the previous by lines. 
   (This can be done though. See below in "Some Hints".) 
2. When you move by words you get a single beep (unless you go on to
   the next line).  This beep gives you an indication of where you       
   are on the current line.
3. As well as "W" and "Q", the "R" key will also move you by word. It
   takes you forward a word but does not speak the word.

Now you should be able to move and read by line and by word. Additionally
the "C" key will read the character at the speech cursor. The keys "," and
"." will move you left by a character and right by a character, but they
do not speak what the characters are.

NOTE: 
All three of these commands cause beeps to occur. The pitch of the beep
tells you what kind of a character is under the cursor.  At present just
notice that a low beep is a space, a middle beep is lower case letters and
punctuation, and a high beep is upper case letters.

To exit from ScreenReading and get back to the program DEMO you press
RETURN. This will be confirmed by the synthesiser saying "EXIT". Any time
you want to check what is on the screen you can press TAB to enter
ScreenReading, read the information on the screen and then RETURN to DEMO. 
Now type in two or three words.  The computer should echo the characters
as you type them.

NOTE:
At any time, when you are typing in characters, you can always TAB into
ScreenReading and check the screen. The program is currently set up to
speak the characters as you type them. This option can be changed so that
it speaks characters that go to the screen.  The program can also be set
up to speak the characters that you type as words (ie. when you press the
SPACE BAR or RETURN) or not to speak at all.  More details of these
features are in Appendix A.

An additional three facilities enable you to access the information which
is on the current screen without having to enter ScreenReader.  The first
two are accessed by the characters CTRL-K and CTRL-L. (To type CTRL-K you
hold down the CTRL key which is to the left of the "A" key, then press
"K".) CTRL-K will read the text on the current line up to the cursor
position. CTRL-L will read all of the text on the current line. The third
facility is that the cursor keys will tell you the character or the line
which the cursor moves to.  This can be particularly useful if you are
editing a BASIC program using the COPY keys.

SOME HINTS 

1. To make sure that your CAPS and SHIFT lock keys are off you can
   press CAPS-LOCK and then press SHIFT-LOCK twice.  To actually check
   the status of your CAPS and SHIFT lock keys you can use the
   ScreenReader command "@". See Appendix A below.
2. Once the ScreenReader program is in memory then many programs which
   are then run will talk.  Pressing SHIFT-BREAK to Auto-Boot (ie.      
   start up) a new disc with a program on will lose the ScreenReader     
   code unless the code is in Sideways RAM - see appendix 3 below).        
   In this case you should place the new disc into the machine and           
   type *EXEC !BOOT.
3. To go back a word over a line boundary, if you are at the start of
   a line then the three commands "U", "E", "Q" executed in sequence 
   will take you back to the start of the last word on the previous      
   line.
4. If the TAB key does not enter ScreenReader for a particular program
   then try using CTRL-A.
5. If you wish to insert a TAB into a program that you are using, try
   using CTRL-I.

APPENDIX A - THE COMMANDS AVAILABLE

These options can be conveniently divided into four main groups.

(a) Setting Parameters for the Speech

These parameters control the style of the speech output.

Normally, whilst you are running the program these parameters are all
"LOCKED", i.e. you cannot change them.  To "UNLOCK" the parameters you
must press the "#" (hash) key after having pressed TAB. Note: this
UNLOCKing is only operational until you press the RETURN key again.

Available options to change are:

Letter "K".
This will toggle the option to have all the input from the keyboard spoken
as it is typed in ScreenReader. (By toggle, it means switching from ON to
OFF, or from OFF to ON depending on the current setting.) When keyboard
echo is on, a beep will be given to indicate when you type an uppercase
letter.

Character " " (ie. space).
This will toggle the option for the space character to be spoken.

Letter "P".
This will toggle the option for punctuation to be spoken.

Letter "I".
This will toggle whether individual characters are spoken as they are
typed (asssuming "K" or "O" are ON). If this option is off the speech will
be in whole words.

Character "|". (Vertical Bar)
This will toggle whether speech is on the RS423 port or the parallel port.
(High beep is RS423, low beep is parallel.)

Character "F".
This is an option which enables you to filter the characters on the screen
before they are spoken.  Some systems like PRESTEL and TELETEXT (CEEFAX
and ORACLE) present information in such a way that the screen will not be
read properly.  This filter will clean up the information so that it is
more clearly understood.  However, the filtering does slow things down a
little and it is best left off unless neccessary.

Character "O".
The "O" command complements the "K" command. Whereas "K" echos keys as
they are typed, "O" will speak characters as they go to the screen.  For
most purposes, you will not want both "O" and "K" on at the same time. If
you did then characters would be spoken as they are keyed in and as they
come up on the screen.  For each application you need to find which
options are most applicable.

Control W
This command is used to teach ScreenReader which keys are used for cursor
movement in specific applications.  The user will be asked to press in
turn the keys for cursor left, right, up, down and then word left and
right.  For example this can be used to set the cursor keys to speak with
the VIEW word processor.  After setting this up the user may wish to save
the configuration as a new version of ScreenReader either with the program
CONFIG (see Appendix B) or by saving the sideways RAM image (see Appendix
C).

Control U
This command enables you to set the function of pressing the UP and DOWN
arrow keys.  They can be set to speak nothing, the character which is
moved to, the word which is moved to, or the whole line which is moved to.
HINTS:  For programming in BASIC try "O" on and "K" off. For most screen
based programs have "O" off and "K" on. Then to read the information on
the screen you can press the TAB key and use "L", "W" or "C".

CTRL-L.
This enables you to set whether multiple spaces are compressed or not. The
default is that they are.

CTRL-K
This enables you to set whether CTRL-K, CTRL-L, CTRL-O and CTRL-P work
when not ScreenReading.  The default is that they do work.

NOTE:
When you press either CTRL-K, CTRL-L, "P", " ", "I", "F", "O" or "K" then
the computer will tell you whether that option is on or off.  Other
functions will give more detailed instructions.

(b) Moving Around the Screen

These options enable you to move around the screen. They are:

Letter "T" : Top of the page.
Letter "B" : Bottom of the page.
Letter "U" : Up a line.
Letter "D" : Down a line.
Letter "S" : Start of line.
Letter "E" : End of the line.
Letter "H" : Home position, i.e. where you started from.
Letter "L" : Read rest of line and go to start of next line.
  NOTE: when you move from line to line then a two tone sound will be given.
  The first tone is the "Home" line and the second tone is the current line.
Letter "," : back a character.
Letter "." : right a character.
Letter "C" : speak character.

NOTE:
When you move by character, every move gives a beep. The beep is very high
for a control character or graphics, high for a capital letter, medium for
lower case letters and punctuation, and low for a space.

Letter "W" : forward a word (with word spoken).
Letter "R" : forward a word (no speech).
Letter "Q" : back a word (no speech).

NOTE:
When you move by word a beep is given to indicate the column. If a two
tone beep is given then this indicates that you have gone to the next
line.

NOTE:
Three of the above commands speak text as they move. They are: Letter L to
speak Line, Letter W to speak Word, Letter C to speak Character.

(c) Utilities

These are a variety of options which may prove to be useful. They are:

Letter "A" will speak the ASCII value of the character under the cursor.
Letter "X" will speak the X co-ordinate (column number) of the cursor.
Letter "Y" will speak the Y co-ordinate (row number) of the cursor.
Letter "@" will tell you the status of the CAPS-LOCK and SHIFT-LOCK keys.

CTRL-B can be used to set the Baud Rate for the Speech Synthesiser.
When you press CTRL-B one of three beeps is emitted:
The low beep is 300 baud.
The middle beep is 1200 baud.
The high beep is 9600 baud.
NOTES: 
1. The default is 9600 baud.
2. ScreenReader must be UNLOCKed for this option to work.

CTRL-N will speak the name and version number of ScreenReader.

CTRL-P (MIMIC synthesiser only)
This command will turn phonectics on ie. the synthesiser will say "Alpha,
Bravo, Charlie" instead of "A B C".  This will work either in or out of
ScreenReading mode.  It is turned off either by Muting the Speech
Synthesier (see below) or when punctuation or commands are read.

Letter "M" will reset the speech synthesiser ie. shut it up or Mute it.
Note: this facility is also available outside of ScreenReading and can be
accessed by typing CTRL-O.
(This facility is not available for the NAMAL speech synthesiser.)

CTRL-D
This command enables a user to set up three options for ScreenReader.  In
turn the user will be asked for the synthesiser being used, the character
which is to be used to enter ScreenReading, and the Volume of sound to be
used for the Beeps and Buzzes.  
Notes:
1. The system must be unlocked for this to work.
2. The TAB key will still be defined on startup (and after BREAK with the
sideways RAM version) by *FX219.  If this is not required then the user
can re-issue the *FX command after initialisation has taken place.


(d) Getting out of ScreenReader

These two commands will exit from ScreenReading. They are:

RETURN - this takes you out of ScreenReading and back into whatever you
were doing before you entered ScreenReader. The cursor will be returned to
its old location before you pressed TAB.

ESCAPE - this is the same as RETURN except that an ESCAPE condition will
also occur.

APPENDIX B - THE PROGRAM CONFIG

After SHIFT-BREAKing the ScreenReader disc you can permenantly alter the
way that the program operates and starts up by running the program CONFIG. 
This is done by making sure that you are in BASIC and then typing
CHAIN"CONFIG" and then press the RETURN key.

This will save the version of ScreenReader which is in memory, with all of
it's current settings, to the disc. 


APPENDIX C - SIDEWAYS RAM VERSION 

On the Talking ScreenReader disc is a program called SCramS.  This is the
sideways RAM version of the ScreenReader program for speech. (The normal
version is called SCprogS.)  To run the sideways RAM version you must have
sideways RAM fitted in your computer or have a 128K Beeb!  

On the BBC model B  the code is loaded in by typing
   *SCramS

On the 128K B+ and the 128K Master the code is loaded in by typing
   *SRLOAD SCramS 8000 W Q

It is then run by pressing CTRL & BREAK. Note: This code will stay in your
machine until you overwrite it or until you turn the machine off. If you
have battery backed up RAM then the code will stay intact even after the
machine has been turned off.

To save the current status of ScreenReader when it is in Sideways RAM 
then you may just save a copy of the Sideways RAM to disc and use that as
a particular version of ScreenReader. You may need a program to do this,
but for the 128K Beebs you can use the SRSAVE command.

Appendix D

The characters 208-217 have been defined to have the following actions
on input to the computer.
   240 - Mute (as in ScreenReading)
   241 - read character to left of cursor
   242 - read character at cursor
   243 - read character to right of cursor
   244 - read word to left of cursor
   245 - read word at of cursor
   246 - read word to right of cursor
   247 - read previous line
   248 - read current line
   249 - read next line

To use this facility you must define the function keys to be these
characters.  (Users with a BBC MASTER can define the numeric keypad at the
side of the computer to use these keys.)

To define the function keys you use: 
     *FX225,240   (this define f0 to f9 to have the functions above)
or   *FX226,240   (this defines SHIFT + f0 to f9)
or   *FX227,240   (this define CTRL + f0 to f9)
or   *FX228,240   (this defines SHIFT+CTRL + f0 to f9)
or   *FX238,240   (this define the keys 0-9 on the MASTER numeric keypad)

These keys are NOT defined for you.  It is for you to decide which key
combinations, if any, to use for each particular application.

Appendix E

The latest feature is to teach ScreenReader (sideways RAM version only) what to say for particular key depressions.  ScreenReader can be taught a new character by pressing CTRL-T (when ScreenReading and when the system
is unlocked).  You will then be prompted for the character to be defined. 
Press the character.  You will then be asked what you want the computer to
say when you press that key. Type in up to 15 characters followed by
return.  To check what has been input, leave ScreenReading and press the
newly defined key.
Note: if this is being used to make function keys talk then you should
teach the program about the function keys when you are in the part of the
program in which the function keys are being used.  This is because the
function keys can change their values during a program.
Once defined you can then save this "SIDEWAYS RAM image" for use the next
time that you use that particular program.




[S.Reader1]

Documentation for SCREEN READER

BBC B with disc drive
Documentation version 2
Disc version 2

RESEARCH CENTRE FOR THE EDUCATION
OF THE VISUALLY HANDICAPPED
Faculty of Education 
University of Birmingham

CONTENTS

Introduction

Using the disc

Getting to grips with the program

Appendix A - The commands available

Appendix B - The program CONFIG

Appendix C - Sideways RAM version

TARGET AUDIENCE 

The blind who wish to use or access the information on the computer
screen using synthetic speech.

INTRODUCTION

Essentially this program acts as a "front end" to the BBC micro. It will
enable all keys pressed to be spoken as characters, as whole words, or not
at all. It will also allow a user to move a "speech cursor" around to read
the text anywhere on the computer screen.

This program can be used so that a blind user can program in BASIC using
the synthetic speech to check what they have entered.  Alternatively, it
can be used when running other people's BASIC programs.  The program will
also work with many of the commercial programs which are currently
available on ROM.  The basic version of ScreenReader does, however, take
up some of the computer's memory which prevents it from working with
certain programs. There is a version which runs in Sideways RAM (see
Appendix C below) which  does not take up any memory from existing
programs. If you wish to exploit this program fully then Sideways RAM is a
useful addition to your computer.

NOTES: 
1. This program has also been tested with the Acorn 6502, Acorn Z80 and
Torch Z80 2nd processors.

2. This program is very flexible and allows it's mode of operation to be
configured for a suitable speech synthesiser and for particular programs. 
This does mean that some of the facilities are not trivial to use and may
take a little time to get used to.

3. A version of this program which works with the WINDOW display is also
available.

4. Specific versions of this program are also available for the word
processor WORDWISE(-PLUS) and the spread-sheet INTER-SHEET.

5. Updates from the previous version of ScreenReader can be found in the
file UPDATE which is on the ScreenReader disc.



Any comments/criticisms/suggestions on this package are most welcome and
should be addressed to:

Research Centre for the Education of the Visually Handicapped,
Selly Wick House,
59 Selly Wick Road,
Birmingham, B29 7JE

We hope this disc is useful.

NOTE: The programs on this disc will not work without a disc drive
      which is thus ESSENTIAL.

The materials in this package should NOT be distributed and all enquiries
concerning them should be referred to the Research Centre.

This program is based on some work which was done by Alan Hadley and Peter
Jones of St. Dunstans.

USING THE DISC 

1. Switch on the computer, monitor and disc drive(s).
2. Insert the appropriate disc into the disc drive and close the drive
   door.
3. Press the <SHIFT> key then, while still depressing the <SHIFT>
   key, press   the <BREAK> key. Release the <BREAK> key, and then
   release the <SHIFT> key.
4. This sequence will load in the ScreenReader code from the disc and
   will take you into BASIC.
   The program is now loaded and you can start using BASIC or any
   other program.

GETTING TO GRIPS WITH THE PROGRAM  

This section will take you through the first stages of using the
ScreenReader program. There are lots of beeps and buzzes in this program.
Don't worry if you find them confusing at the start - they are intended to
give some kind of extra information.  Nor should you worry if you find the
speech difficult to understand at first. That comes with time and you are
going to come across some commands which will make reading the information
with synthetic speech easier. This section does not deal with all of the
features of this program. It is just intended to get you started.  You are
referred to the Appendices for detailed desciptions of the facilities
available.

NOTES: 
1. Most of the commands have been put onto keys so that some kind of
   sense is made of the character, eg. "T" for top of screen.
2. When you press "DELETE" the computer will say DELETE followed by
   the character to the left of the cursor.  In most cases this will
   be what you have deleted. (Some programs use the delete key for
   other purposes which ScreenReader will not be aware of.)

TO BEGIN:
Start up the disc as in "Using the program" above.  ScreenReader is now
loaded into the computer.  What is needed now is some text on the screen
to practice using ScreenReader with. There is a program on the disc which
will let you do this. It is called DEMO. Type CHAIN"DEMO" and then press
the RETURN key to get the demonstration program into the computer and run
it.

What the program DEMO does is to put some text onto the top few lines and
onto the bottom line of the screen.  It also allows you to type in text a
line at a time which appears on line seven of the screen. The first thing
to do is to practice ScreenReading. Pressing the TAB key will take you out
of whatever program you are running and into ScreenReading.   Do that now
- press the TAB key.  The synthesiser will say ScreenReading.  You will
also hear a beep. That beep  gives you some indication as to where you are
on the screen (by it's pitch).

What you can do now is to move a "speech cursor" around the screen and
send text at the speech cursor to the speech synthesiser.  Press the "T"
(for top) key. You will hear a two-tone beep. The first tone gives an
indication of the line where you first came into ScreenReader, the second
beep gives an indication of the current line (which is the top line of the
screen).  Now pressing the "L" key will read out the current line of text.
Try that now.  It should say "This is the top line." It will also give
another two-tone beep.  This beep happens every time that you move down a
line on the screen.  Press "L" again and the next line of the screen will
be spoken.  Keep pressing "L" to work your way down the screen. When you
get to the bottom the computer will keep on beeping you to tell you that
there is nowhere else to go. So far you have learnt "T" for top of the
page and "L" to read a line of text.  Extra commands for moving up and
down the screen by lines are "U" for up a line, "D" for down a line and
"B" for bottom of the screen. Press "T" to go to the top of the screen
then try using these commands to move around and read lines on the screen.

The next commands to learn are how to move around the screen a word at a
time. Use the commands that you already know to get the speech cursor to
one of the lines on the screen containing text.  Now press the "W" (for word) key two or three times slowly.  You will read the text
 a word at a
time. Now press the "Q" key. This is to the left of the "W" (for word) key
and takes you back a word. Practice reading words with "W" and then going
back with "Q" and read them again.

NOTES: 
1. Whereas "W" will read a word and then go onto the next line (if
   appropriate) "Q" will not go back a word to the previous by lines. 
   (This can be done though. See below in "Some Hints".) 
2. When you move by words you get a single beep (unless you go on to
   the next line).  This beep gives you an indication of where you       
   are on the current line.
3. As well as "W" and "Q", the "R" key will also move you by word. It
   takes you forward a word but does not speak the word.

Now you should be able to move and read by line and by word. Additionally
the "C" key will read the character at the speech cursor. The keys "," and
"." will move you left by a character and right by a character, but they
do not speak what the characters are.

NOTE: 
All three of these commands cause beeps to occur. The pitch of the beep
tells you what kind of a character is under the cursor.  At present just
notice that a low beep is a space, a middle beep is lower case letters and
punctuation, and a high beep is upper case letters.

To exit from ScreenReading and get back to the program DEMO you press
RETURN. This will be confirmed by the synthesiser saying "EXIT". Any time
you want to check what is on the screen you can press TAB to enter
ScreenReading, read the information on the screen and then RETURN to DEMO. 
Now type in two or three words.  The computer should echo the characters
as you type them.

NOTE:
At any time, when you are typing in characters, you can always TAB into
ScreenReading and check the screen. The program is currently set up to
speak the characters as you type them. This option can be changed so that
it speaks characters that go to the screen.  The program can also be set
up to speak the characters that you type as words (ie. when you press the
SPACE BAR or RETURN) or not to speak at all.  More details of these
features are in Appendix A.

An additional three facilities enable you to access the information which
is on the current screen without having to enter ScreenReader.  The first
two are accessed by the characters CTRL-K and CTRL-L. (To type CTRL-K you
hold down the CTRL key which is to the left of the "A" key, then press
"K".) CTRL-K will read the text on the current line up to the cursor
position. CTRL-L will read all of the text on the current line. The third
facility is that the cursor keys will tell you the character or the line
which the cursor moves to.  This can be particularly useful if you are
editing a BASIC program using the COPY keys.

SOME HINTS 

1. To make sure that your CAPS and SHIFT lock keys are off you can
   press CAPS-LOCK and then press SHIFT-LOCK twice.  To actually check
   the status of your CAPS and SHIFT lock keys you can use the
   ScreenReader command "@". See Appendix A below.
2. Once the ScreenReader program is in memory then many programs which
   are then run will talk.  Pressing SHIFT-BREAK to Auto-Boot (ie.      
   start up) a new disc with a program on will lose the ScreenReader     
   code unless the code is in Sideways RAM - see appendix 3 below).        
   In this case you should place the new disc into the machine and           
   type *EXEC !BOOT.
3. To go back a word over a line boundary, if you are at the start of
   a line then the three commands "U", "E", "Q" executed in sequence 
   will take you back to the start of the last word on the previous      
   line.
4. If the TAB key does not enter ScreenReader for a particular program
   then try using CTRL-A.
5. If you wish to insert a TAB into a program that you are using, try
   using CTRL-I.





[S.Reader2]

APPENDIX A - THE COMMANDS AVAILABLE

These options can be conveniently divided into four main groups.

(a) Setting Parameters for the Speech

These parameters control the style of the speech output.

Normally, whilst you are running the program these parameters are all
"LOCKED", i.e. you cannot change them.  To "UNLOCK" the parameters you
must press the "#" (hash) key after having pressed TAB. Note: this
UNLOCKing is only operational until you press the RETURN key again.

Available options to change are:

Letter "K".
This will toggle the option to have all the input from the keyboard spoken
as it is typed in ScreenReader. (By toggle, it means switching from ON to
OFF, or from OFF to ON depending on the current setting.) When keyboard
echo is on, a beep will be given to indicate when you type an uppercase
letter.

Character " " (ie. space).
This will toggle the option for the space character to be spoken.

Letter "P".
This will toggle the option for punctuation to be spoken.

Letter "I".
This will toggle whether individual characters are spoken as they are
typed (asssuming "K" or "O" are ON). If this option is off the speech will
be in whole words.

Character "|". (Vertical Bar)
This will toggle whether speech is on the RS423 port or the parallel port.
(High beep is RS423, low beep is parallel.)

Character "F".
This is an option which enables you to filter the characters on the screen
before they are spoken.  Some systems like PRESTEL and TELETEXT (CEEFAX
and ORACLE) present information in such a way that the screen will not be
read properly.  This filter will clean up the information so that it is
more clearly understood.  However, the filtering does slow things down a
little and it is best left off unless neccessary.

Character "O".
The "O" command complements the "K" command. Whereas "K" echos keys as
they are typed, "O" will speak characters as they go to the screen.  For
most purposes, you will not want both "O" and "K" on at the same time. If
you did then characters would be spoken as they are keyed in and as they
come up on the screen.  For each application you need to find which
options are most applicable.

Control W
This command is used to teach ScreenReader which keys are used for cursor
movement in specific applications.  The user will be asked to press in
turn the keys for cursor left, right, up, down and then word left and
right.  For example this can be used to set the cursor keys to speak with
the VIEW word processor.  After setting this up the user may wish to save
the configuration as a new version of ScreenReader either with the program
CONFIG (see Appendix B) or by saving the sideways RAM image (see Appendix
C).

Control U
This command enables you to set the function of pressing the UP and DOWN
arrow keys.  They can be set to speak nothing, the character which is
moved to, the word which is moved to, or the whole line which is moved to.
HINTS:  For programming in BASIC try "O" on and "K" off. For most screen
based programs have "O" off and "K" on. Then to read the information on
the screen you can press the TAB key and use "L", "W" or "C".

CTRL-L.
This enables you to set whether multiple spaces are compressed or not. The
default is that they are.

CTRL-K
This enables you to set whether CTRL-K, CTRL-L, CTRL-O and CTRL-P work
when not ScreenReading.  The default is that they do work.

NOTE:
When you press either CTRL-K, CTRL-L, "P", " ", "I", "F", "O" or "K" then
the computer will tell you whether that option is on or off.  Other
functions will give more detailed instructions.

(b) Moving Around the Screen

These options enable you to move around the screen. They are:

Letter "T" : Top of the page.
Letter "B" : Bottom of the page.
Letter "U" : Up a line.
Letter "D" : Down a line.
Letter "S" : Start of line.
Letter "E" : End of the line.
Letter "H" : Home position, i.e. where you started from.
Letter "L" : Read rest of line and go to start of next line.
  NOTE: when you move from line to line then a two tone sound will be given.
  The first tone is the "Home" line and the second tone is the current line.
Letter "," : back a character.
Letter "." : right a character.
Letter "C" : speak character.

NOTE:
When you move by character, every move gives a beep. The beep is very high
for a control character or graphics, high for a capital letter, medium for
lower case letters and punctuation, and low for a space.

Letter "W" : forward a word (with word spoken).
Letter "R" : forward a word (no speech).
Letter "Q" : back a word (no speech).

NOTE:
When you move by word a beep is given to indicate the column. If a two
tone beep is given then this indicates that you have gone to the next
line.

NOTE:
Three of the above commands speak text as they move. They are: Letter L to
speak Line, Letter W to speak Word, Letter C to speak Character.

(c) Utilities

These are a variety of options which may prove to be useful. They are:

Letter "A" will speak the ASCII value of the character under the cursor.
Letter "X" will speak the X co-ordinate (column number) of the cursor.
Letter "Y" will speak the Y co-ordinate (row number) of the cursor.
Letter "@" will tell you the status of the CAPS-LOCK and SHIFT-LOCK keys.

CTRL-B can be used to set the Baud Rate for the Speech Synthesiser.
When you press CTRL-B one of three beeps is emitted:
The low beep is 300 baud.
The middle beep is 1200 baud.
The high beep is 9600 baud.
NOTES: 
1. The default is 9600 baud.
2. ScreenReader must be UNLOCKed for this option to work.

CTRL-N will speak the name and version number of ScreenReader.

CTRL-P (MIMIC synthesiser only)
This command will turn phonectics on ie. the synthesiser will say "Alpha,
Bravo, Charlie" instead of "A B C".  This will work either in or out of
ScreenReading mode.  It is turned off either by Muting the Speech
Synthesier (see below) or when punctuation or commands are read.

Letter "M" will reset the speech synthesiser ie. shut it up or Mute it.
Note: this facility is also available outside of ScreenReading and can be
accessed by typing CTRL-O.
(This facility is not available for the NAMAL speech synthesiser.)

CTRL-D
This command enables a user to set up three options for ScreenReader.  In
turn the user will be asked for the synthesiser being used, the character
which is to be used to enter ScreenReading, and the Volume of sound to be
used for the Beeps and Buzzes.  
Notes:
1. The system must be unlocked for this to work.
2. The TAB key will still be defined on startup (and after BREAK with the
sideways RAM version) by *FX219.  If this is not required then the user
can re-issue the *FX command after initialisation has taken place.


(d) Getting out of ScreenReader

These two commands will exit from ScreenReading. They are:

RETURN - this takes you out of ScreenReading and back into whatever you
were doing before you entered ScreenReader. The cursor will be returned to
its old location before you pressed TAB.

ESCAPE - this is the same as RETURN except that an ESCAPE condition will
also occur.

APPENDIX B - THE PROGRAM CONFIG

After SHIFT-BREAKing the ScreenReader disc you can permenantly alter the
way that the program operates and starts up by running the program CONFIG. 
This is done by making sure that you are in BASIC and then typing
CHAIN"CONFIG" and then press the RETURN key.

This will save the version of ScreenReader which is in memory, with all of
it's current settings, to the disc. 


APPENDIX C - SIDEWAYS RAM VERSION 

On the Talking ScreenReader disc is a program called SCramS.  This is the
sideways RAM version of the ScreenReader program for speech. (The normal
version is called SCprogS.)  To run the sideways RAM version you must have
sideways RAM fitted in your computer or have a 128K Beeb!  

On the BBC model B  the code is loaded in by typing
   *SCramS

On the 128K B+ and the 128K Master the code is loaded in by typing
   *SRLOAD SCramS 8000 W Q

It is then run by pressing CTRL & BREAK. Note: This code will stay in your
machine until you overwrite it or until you turn the machine off. If you
have battery backed up RAM then the code will stay intact even after the
machine has been turned off.

To save the current status of ScreenReader when it is in Sideways RAM 
then you may just save a copy of the Sideways RAM to disc and use that as
a particular version of ScreenReader. You may need a program to do this,
but for the 128K Beebs you can use the SRSAVE command.

Appendix D

The characters 208-217 have been defined to have the following actions
on input to the computer.
   240 - Mute (as in ScreenReading)
   241 - read character to left of cursor
   242 - read character at cursor
   243 - read character to right of cursor
   244 - read word to left of cursor
   245 - read word at of cursor
   246 - read word to right of cursor
   247 - read previous line
   248 - read current line
   249 - read next line

To use this facility you must define the function keys to be these
characters.  (Users with a BBC MASTER can define the numeric keypad at the
side of the computer to use these keys.)

To define the function keys you use: 
     *FX225,240   (this define f0 to f9 to have the functions above)
or   *FX226,240   (this defines SHIFT + f0 to f9)
or   *FX227,240   (this define CTRL + f0 to f9)
or   *FX228,240   (this defines SHIFT+CTRL + f0 to f9)
or   *FX238,240   (this define the keys 0-9 on the MASTER numeric keypad)

These keys are NOT defined for you.  It is for you to decide which key
combinations, if any, to use for each particular application.

Appendix E

The latest feature is to teach ScreenReader (sideways RAM version only) what to say for particular key depressions.  ScreenReader can be taught a new character by pressing CTRL-T (when ScreenReading and when the system
is unlocked).  You will then be prompted for the character to be defined. 
Press the character.  You will then be asked what you want the computer to
say when you press that key. Type in up to 15 characters followed by
return.  To check what has been input, leave ScreenReading and press the
newly defined key.
Note: if this is being used to make function keys talk then you should
teach the program about the function keys when you are in the part of the
program in which the function keys are being used.  This is because the
function keys can change their values during a program.
Once defined you can then save this "SIDEWAYS RAM image" for use the next
time that you use that particular program.