## DECtalk Express and Windows 95

The DECtalk Express may speak erractically/non-sensibly when running in WIN 95.

The problem appears to be due to the fact that Win 95 wants to control the COM port the DECtalk Express is attached to even though a DOS TSR (DT_DRIV) is already in control.

This problem is similar to the problem we found with Win 3.x where we had to use DEBUG statements in DTEXP.BAT to remove the COM port from the systems BIOS inventory.

To provide a more permanent solution for Win 3.x we automatically add a line in DTEXP.BAT which removes the com port the DECtalk Express was detected to from the BIOS inventory. This lets DT_DRIV control the comm port and Windows goes on it merry way never seeing it.

In Win 95 there is a way to directly remove a comm port from the inventory that it tries to control. This is done via the START/SETTINGS/Control Panel and selecting the SYSTEM applet. This will give you the System Properties page and the Device Manager tab needs to be selected. Next click on the box in front of the Ports (COM & LPT) item. This will explode the lists to show all COM and LPT ports Win 95 has been able to find. Click once on the entry for the COM port that the DECtalk Express is connected e.g., Communications Port (COM 1) to highlight it. Next click on the Properties button at the bottom left of the dialog box. Under the General tab, go to the bottom of the dialog box under Device Usage and make sure no box is check marked. In a new system it will usually have the item "Original Configuration" listed with a check mark in it. Click on it once and it will clear. Click on OK at the very bottom of the dialog box. You will be returned to the Device Manager tab and the COM port that you unchecked will now have a red "X" through it. If you higlighted the entry and clicked on Properties, the General tab for the COM port would show Device Status as "disabled". Whew!!!

With the COM port disabled in Win 95, the DECTalk EXpress driver should work OK. One minor thing has to been done first. The DTEXP.BAT file needs to be edited and the debug statement REM'd out. Save the file and restart the computer. The DECtalk Express driver DT_DRIV must first be loaded either via AUTOEXEC.BAT or from the Win 95 Command prompt before the GUI starts.

Once this is all done the DECtalk Express should work in Win 95.

One final caveat. If the COM port that uses the same interrrupt (IRQ) as the one used by the DECtalk Express is also used you may get flakey operation or no speech. This can happen if say the DECtalk Express is on COM1 and a modem is on COM3. They both use IRQ4 as a default. The remedy is to change the modem to use a non-standard IRQ for the COM port e.g., IRQ 5 thereby providing exclusive IRQs for each device.

We hope to have a way to do all the Device Manager stuff more automatically. Stay tuned.

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