Re: Controlling a virtual Apple II by voice

[magnusfalkirk <dean.phares@gmail.com>]

On Apr 11, 4:11 am, bloomer_au <bloo...@iprimus.com.au> wrote:
> I have to carefully manage RSI that I have in my arms and hands these
> days, which restricts the amount of typing, programming and gaming I
> can do.
>
> I recently bought Mac Speech Dictate speech-to-text software for my
> MacBook so that I could cut back significantly on all typing
> activities at the computer.
>
> Unfortunately, I have this Apple II game I'm writing that still needs
> a decent amount of work, but it's hard for me to avoid typing if I am
> to finish it.
>
> This made me wonder if I could use the speech-to-text software to
> program in an Apple II emulator. The software seems to be unable to
> translate my speech directly into a virtual Apple II. I tried multiple
> emulators, and in most cases my speech was entered as garbage
> characters.
>
> However I knew that Sweet16 for one could type in text copied from the
> MacOS environment and then pasted into the emulator. So I tried to
> exploit this fact to create a way to be able to speak into the
> emulator.
>
> I came up with an AppleScript which, when I said the magic word
> (ENTER),
> would copy the contents of a Text Edit window, add a return character,
> switch to Sweet16, paste those contents there (thus' typing' them and
> then pressing return on the Apple II) and then switch back to Text
> Edit, ready for my next utterance.
>
> This worked. By booting Sweet16, then opening a Text Edit window
> beside it, I could basically type into the Apple II by voice.
>
> You can play an adventure game this way, saying GO NORTH, ENTER, GET
> ALL, ENTER, etc. You can also program, though the software is
> obviously designed to recognise English words, not Applesoft or
> assembly mnemonics, so I tend to have to spell out the programming
> letter by letter. This can be a bit slow, but you get used to it
> quickly, and hey, I'm not typing! A person could create further macros
> to enter commonly used commands.
>
> Today I got a bit fancier. I wanted to be able to tap things like
> 'control-t' and 'control-b' to to control the up and down flow of the
> Applesoft turbo editor that I use. So I've got it so I can just say
> Up, or Down. Doesn't turn on a dime but it works. I can start a
> program listing search by saying Search, and find the next incidence
> of something by saying Again. If I say Screen, the currently visible
> text contents of the Apple II screen are copied over into the text
> edit document.
>
> I'm just letting everyone know that you can operate a virtual Apple II
> this way if you need or want to. The speech software equivalent on a
> PC is called Dragon, and I imagine using some PC equivalent of
> AppleScript you could do similar stuff on that platform.
>
> -Wade

Congratulations! I'm happy to hear that you got things working the way
you want them to. I admire your perseverance in finding ways to make
it easier to still use the Apple II, even in emulation.

Dean