User avatar
Simon Jaeger @simon@procrastodon.net
1w
Has anyone done anything with the Bookport Classic from APH recently?
I found mine in a cupboard, along with a card that had actual books on it. After taking it apart and cleaning the board underneath the rubber keypad, I seem to have a fully working unit.
I wonder if anyone ever reverse-engineered the text format it used. If I recall, each document was represented by two files on the bookport, one being an index file and the other being a line-separated copy of the text file. The index file defined headings and possibly other metadata.
I think there was a unix tool for creating these, so my guess is "yes", but that tool seems to be gone from the internet now. I think I have the source code archived, but if anyone else has more info about this old thing, I'd like to know.
I think there's also a firmware update for it, so I might have to go to VM land to get that working.
5
3
0
0
User avatar
Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io
1w
@KaraLG84 @simon I really wanted to get the Doubletalk working as a speech synth. I had the BookCourier in the mid 2000s and a working Doubletalk especially in that form factor would have been super useful back then. I used my unit until around 2009/2010 when I stopped using TTS to read books. I never really got on with it for fiction, but it was good for technical books.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
Simon Jaeger @simon@procrastodon.net
1w
@andrew @KaraLG84 I'd love to have a Doubletalk. I used to read an absolutely astonishing amount of fiction on this Bookport, and being able to use it as an external synth would be great. I never understood why that wasn't possible.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io
1w
@simon @KaraLG84 It was apparently due to a licencing restriction.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
Simon Jaeger @simon@procrastodon.net
1w
@andrew @KaraLG84 How irritating. I liked it better when I thought it was just a hardware restriction.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
Andrew Hodgson @andrew@hodgson.io
1w
@simon @KaraLG84 The Book Courier was the non APH version of the Book Port. Not sure if there were any differences. The device started out life called the Road Runner. Back then I think it used a serial port connection rather than USB. I seem to remember them actually having the tech to make it act as an external synth but they couldn't use it for that.
3
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1w
@andrew @simon @KaraLG84 I had the road runner. The original maker was a company called Springer designs, I believe. It could only read text files, and had 1.5 mb of storage.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1w
@KaraLG84 @andrew @simon Nope. Springer Designs was what the company renamed itself to when it released the Book Courier/Book Port. It was originally Ostrich Software. Here's the installation disc for the RoadRunner transfer software for Windows: share.interfree.ca/app/open/2af6XfRBMFP-pFGJNbme7Gm-weyDc69UiDw-GpHEafHPvuG?view=1
1
0
0
0
User avatar
Kara Goldfinch @KaraLG84@dragonscave.space
1w
@fastfinge @andrew @simon I thought they were made by the same company but wasn't sure. You should upload that to the internet archive if you haven't already.
1
0
0
0
User avatar
🇨🇦Samuel Proulx🇨🇦 @fastfinge@interfree.ca
1w
@KaraLG84 @andrew @simon Nope. I don’t contribute there until they start giving a shit about accessibility. So never, I guess.
0
0
0
0