from "Tim Noonan" <[log in to unmask]>


           REVIEW OF ROADRUNNER TEXT READING MACHINE

Hi,

I recently imported a RoadRunner, an exciting new, hot-off-the press
hand-held walkman-like device that stores and "reads" up to three meg of
etext ascii documents using an in-built Double-talk speech synthesiser.

This somewhat lengthy review summarises my experiences with the device to
date.

To be honest, its a very long time since I've been so excited about and so
happy with a new technology purchase!  The RoadRunner is wonderfully
compact and superbly designed, but its certainly not for everyone.

 The device is very small and fits comfortably in the hand or pocket.  It
has a belt clip also.  Its about the size of an audio cassette in a case,
or maybe a little thicker.  It has a 3.5 ml stereo headphone jack and a
smaller jack for the serial cable.  It is powered by two double-a
batteries.  No AC power option or jack is provided.  It does not contain
an internal speaker, but can very adequately drive walkman earphones or
amplified speakers.  It can drive un-powered speakers to a lesser degree,
but this is ok in a quiet room.

The unit can store up to three Megabytes of ASCII text and can read
continuously for about 40 hours on two AA batteries.

The front panel of the device has a telephone style keypad which is used
to adjust speed and volume while reading, to move back and forward in the
document and to perform other adjustment functions.  These buttons are
widely spaced and they are of the membrane type, so you need to use quite
a bit of pressure to activate the functions.  The assignment of functions
to keys is very logical, efficient and intuitive.  Holding any key down
for a couple of seconds announces its functions.

The RoadRunner voice is the double-talk, but it has quite good filtering,
so there is little background noise in the audio signal.  At low volumes
there is a somewhat noticeable quiet static sound at the start and end of
each word, but this is not pronounced, and is probably about equivalent to
the latest pc-based double-talk cards in quality.  In my view, (and a lot
of other audio readers of etext agree with me) The DoubleTalk voice is
extremely well suited to listening to etext fiction.

I don't know exactly how fast the unit can read, but it is a comfortable,
quite snappy speed, faster than the keynote products, but not as fast as
the highest speeds from Artic, the Blazie products or the DECTalk.  I did
a few rough tests and gauged it at between 400 and 500 words per minute.

Please note that the RoadRunner can not be operated as a speech
synthesiser.  I suspect that RC Systems licensed the DoubleTalk for this
device on the condition that it wasn't competition to the DoubleTalk
synthesiser range.

While listening to a document you can move back and forward in the text by
sentences, paragraphs or pages.  You can store up to ten book marks in
each file you are reading, and jump back and forth between these.  It is
also possible to adjust the speed or volume without interrupting reading -
the changes just appear in the audio, similar to the equivalent on-the-fly
speed and volume adjustments on the keysoft range of products. When the
reading is halted, you can additionally adjust the pitch and character of
the voice.

There is a sleep timer which automatically stops reading after ten, 20 ...
60 minutes if no buttons are pressed.  This can also be disabled. Its a
great feature for late-night reading. At any time while reading you can
press the play/stop key to immediately stop speech.  When you press this
key again it continues reading from the start of the current sentence.
The RoadRunner remembers your farthest reading point and current reading
point for each file.  Thus, it is easy to go back to check a name or
detail in a book you are reading, and then return to the place where you
were up to.

There is an advanced search mode, this allows you to move about the file
in ever-decreasing jumps, basically a binary search navigation through the
file.

However, be warned that the RoadRunner can not move back and forward by
words, nor can you check the spelling of words, or adjust the level of
punctuation.  Thus the unit works well for most fiction reading, but would
be somewhat limited for reading technical material.  In addition, there is
no text search available.

For me, this device is very suitable.  I don't like being stuck in front
of my computer to read fiction, but I want to access the increasing range
of ascii fiction available from public domain sites like Gutenberg and
from scanning of current books.

As a take-anywhere reading machine for etext fiction this device can only
be described as a dream, easy and intuitive to operate, comfortable to
handle and hold, and pleasant to the ear.

The package is a little less elegant when it comes to preparing text for
downloading prior to reading.  Because the device is flash memory based,
it is necessary to do a full erase of its memory prior to a download.
Thus you need to prepare the materials for download on a PC, and at
present, only 95/98/nt software is available to do this.  DOS software is
apparently in the works, but I don't know when it will be ready.

The 95 software is quite accessible and has keyboard shortcuts for most
operations but is not really nice to use.  On the PC you basically need to
create a navigation file, (an information tree for downloading), and then
this is sent via the provided serial port to the unit.  Files can be added
to, or deleted from the navigation file on the PC, allowing you to create
up to three megs of ASCII text files for reading on the move. You can
store multiple navigation files on your PC, and send any one of these to
the RoadRunner.

The PC software doesn't handle wildcards, so you need to individually
select, or enter the file names for all files you want to add to the
navigation file.

The navigation file can just contain a list of files, or you can create a
hierarchical directory structure for the text files for reading in the
unit.  For reading large fiction books, the first approach is a bit faster
and all that is required.

the navigation file can be saved on your pc, for later updating. The
preparation and downloading process is quite slow, say ten minutes for
three meg, so its not well suited to quickly dropping a new book into the
unit without a bit of time available.

However, as previously stated, once the books are in the unit, it is a
breeze to use.

The units sell in the US for about 350 U.S. dollars.

If you want to ask other questions about the RoadRunner you can send them
to me.  This is a very specialised device and it wouldn't suit everybody.
It isn't particularly cheap, but, for me, it has, only after a couple of
days, greatly increased my etext reading options and effectiveness.

Tim Noonan


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