Competing directly with the TRS80 at the time was the Apple II plus with
48K ram, and then the Apple II E.  It used the Echo software and synthesizer.

Once the IBM PC took over the entire market, things started changing
fast.  I still am fond of the original IBM Screen Reader for DOS which had
it's own keypad.  I used it with the Apollo 2 synthesizer.  Still use the
embedded keyboard version occasionally when JAWS for Windows won't
suit.  Using the IBM Screen reader made switching to the Num pad based JAWS
for Windows easy.

Bill
At 02:12 PM 3/23/04 -0500, you wrote:
>Wow, I didn't even know the TrS80 even had speech support.
>Taht's amazing.  I used to have a coco 2 and then a coco 3.
>Used to program in basic on it.  Guided myself by putting sounds into the
>code to know how the program was progressing.  It would have been a lot
>easier with speech.
>Those were the days!
>I remember those Kurzweil monsters.
>They created magic for me.
>It was neat.
>Anyway, enough remeniscing.  Should probably go before my computer crashes.
>Something computers didn't do then either.
>Martin
>
>
>*******************************************************
>***    Life is all good!                            ***
>*******************************************************
>
> >
> >Subject: History of screen readers
> >   From: Jody W Ianuzzi <[log in to unmask]>
> >   Date: Tue, 23 Mar 2004 09:21:17 -0500
> >     To: [log in to unmask]
> >
> >Back in the 1980s we had a Radio Shack TRS-80 with 48K memory.  We also got
> >the voice synthesizer from Radio Shack and a program from the University of
> >Illinois to read the screen.  I think this is the program that was being
> >developed by the Navy.  The whole package did a pretty good job,
> >considering.
> >
> >My next screen reader was from Micro Talk for DOS with a Synthphonics voice
> >synthesizer.
> >
> >At the same time Kurtzweil came out with their first text reader.  It was
> >the size of a large copier and cost $25,000 each.  New York State bought 25
> >of them and put them in regional libraries around the state.
> >
> >Jody
> >
> >
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>
>
>VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
>To join or leave the list, send a message to
>[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
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>  VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
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VICUG-L is the Visually Impaired Computer User Group List.
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[log in to unmask]  In the body of the message, simply type
"subscribe vicug-l" or "unsubscribe vicug-l" without the quotations.
 VICUG-L is archived on the World Wide Web at
http://maelstrom.stjohns.edu/archives/vicug-l.html