Morse Code as an Enabling Technology Jeremy Cribb

Morse Code as an Enabling Technology Jeremy Cribb and Doug Daniell Comp 190, Gary Bishop 22 April 2003

What did we do? n n Sharp Zaurus PDA with Morse code input and Text-to-Speech (TTS) Feedback Explored ideas for making mobile devices universally accessible

What is the purpose? Electronic notepad that is relatively inexpensive, very portable, and enabled for a variety of users, while still functional for all n To demonstrate the feasibility of adapting PDAs/embedded systems for blind or physically disabled users n

Recap - What is Morse Code? Invented in 1800 s – a binary code of dits and dahs is used to convey information quickly, often over large distances n Advantages for ET n Flexible n Simple and inexpensive n Rapid text entry ( ≤ 30 wpm) n Enables many users who otherwise could not communicate with computers n

What were the problems with existing solutions? n n Expensive (~500) Hardware dependent desktop/PCMCIA support required Not very portable Each application is very specialized

Improvements by our Product Serves a need for blind/disabled/all users n Helpful for communication n n ALS, MS, or the speech impaired Low requirements for physical ability (ALS) n Mobile w/long battery life n Cost Effective n Reduces the hardware requirement n n Standard serial (9 -pin/USB) support

Why the Zaurus SL-5500? Linux! n Relatively inexpensive (~$200) n Stereo output / microphone input n Bluetooth wireless-capable n Standard serial interfaces (RS 232 & USB) n Standard removable flash memory n Built-in text completion n

Incremental Design Approach 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. Construct a functional Morse-to-Speech application in Python (py. MTS) on a desktop system Research TTS options for PDAs, and install a usable system on our platform of choice Port the py. MTS application to a PDA Platform Hardware Improvements: add a custom serial or wireless input device Software Improvements: an accessible OS for PDAs? Additional software tools for M. C. Education?

Details of the Design n Flite TTS library (optimized version of the open source TTS Festival) ongoing project at Carnegie-Mellon n lightweight version of the open source TTS Festival n coded in C for speed n http: //www. speech. cs. cmu. edu/flite/ n n Python Zaurus-optimized version n Py. QT windowing library n

Deliverables n n py. MTS ROM image with all software installed?

Ideas for Improvement n n Adding Serial Interface layer for attaching hardware Wireless Bluetooth cable-replacement solution (~$50) n www. pellico. com/zaurus/hardware/bluetooth. Dev. Kit. html

What are the next steps? Extend hardware support to serial interface. Example - wireless bluetooth input n Insert Morse as an optional kernel module into the OS n Design a full TTS/Morse environment for a PDA (Mobile JAWS/Morse. Shell? ) n Design tools to encourage users to learn Morse code n

Conclusion n With minimal investment we were able to develop an application that with further development could serve a important role for a great variety of users, regardless of ability. With (a whole lot) more testing and development, and building upon some of our basic ideas, it should be possible to create a fully speech enabled PDA with flexible input.