July 16th, 2024 BT Speak® System Upgrade Posted By: BT Development Team

This update includes a possible fix for the occasional loss of speech that could happen after powering on your BT Speak. It also includes additional clock settings and the ability to install and remove text to speech engines.

Temporary Fix for Occasional Loss of Speech After Powering On

Some customers have encountered an occasional loss of speech after powering on their BT Speak. Although this update doesn't completely resolve this problem, it does make it possible for you to easily resolve it.
It seems that loss of speech after a reboot can be triggered if the RH Voice and the Vocalizer TTS engines are both installed at the same time. The solution, at least for now, is to remove either RH Voice or the Vocalizer engine. The new TTS Manager, which can be found within the Speech Settings menu, allows you to do this.

New TTS (Text to Speech) Manager

The TTS Manager allows you to either install or remove speech engines. You can get to the TTS Manager by opening Options, System, System Administration, Settings, Speech. This menu provides options to install or remove Vocalizer voices and RH Voice. In addition, we’ve also added the ability to install or remove the Pico and Festival Lite TTS engines.

New Clock Settings

A new Clock Settings submenu has been added to the Settings menu. (O-chord for Options, S for System, S for System Administration, S for Settings, C for Clock Settings.) It currently contains the following new options, along with their respective shortcut keys.

Say Seconds: S
Time Format: F

The other options in this menu, which we’ve had for a while, are:

Set the Time Zone Based on Your Internet Address: I
Change the Time Zone: Z
Change the Date: D
Change the Time: T

Say Seconds: S

The Say Seconds option has two choices: Just Say Minutes and Say Minutes and Seconds. If you set this option to Just Say Minutes, the time will be spoken in a way that you might be more accustomed to. As an example: customers in the U.S. might hear something like “12:30 PM.”

Time Format: F

This option offers the following choices.
Local Format
24-hour Mode
12-hour Mode

Miscellaneous Fixes and Improvements

Files with a .MP4 extension can now be played in traditional mode from the file browser. Locate a file with a .MP4 extension and press enter to begin playing the file.

Files with a .md or .rst extension can now be opened from the file browser. This should make it much easier for customers who use their BT Speak to compose and edit text using markdown.
When in desktop mode, we have added a command to temporarily disable Orca’s speech. To do this, make sure that you’re in desktop mode. Press all of the keys on the keyboard simultaneously. This is a toggle and you will either hear “speech disabled” or “speech enabled.” This is a temporary action, meaning that if you reboot while Orca's speech is toggled off, it will be back on again after a reboot. This command is only for Orca’s speech in desktop mode. It does not affect the speech when in traditional mode.
In the file browser, pressing the letter A (About This File) didn't work when the name of the file contained a space. This issue was resolved as part of the last upgrade.
In the “About This Device” screen, you can now find out how much RAM is installed in your device. You can quickly get to this screen by pressing O-chord for Options, S for System and D for About This Device.
Installing Vocalizer voices has been moved from the Device Customization menu to the TTS Manager.

Features