Read me file for PAM PAM is shareware, which means that it is not free, and to use it after the evaluation period of sixty days, it must be registered. Please read this file completely before running PAM for the first time. I discovered that the Window's screen saver function can cause PAM to freeze while reading longer files. It is a problem in Windows, so you should select 'none' for a screen saver under the desktop window in the Control Panel when you are using PAM to read files. PAM's hot keys are: "Pause" : brings up the PAM main window, and resets PAM. "Shift+Pause" : reads any text on the Clipboard. "Alt+Pause" : Announces time and reads appointments. "F1" : Gets help from the main window. While reading text files sentence by sentence: "P" pauses the reading for 10 seconds. "Q" or "Pause" Aborts the reading. When the main window is active, 'X' closes PAM. There are hot keys to activate any of the buttons. When adding/editing data in the appointment, note, or configuration windows, Alt+F will cause PAM to speak the value in the current field. I am also including a separate program called CLIPDIAL.EXE. This is a freeware program written by Greg McCain. You can run this program independently, or put it in the startup group as well if you wish. It will dial a phone number that is placed on the clipboard. You can place a phone number on the clipboard by highlighting it from within Pam or any other application, and pressing Ctrl+C. Then press Ctrl+Shift+P, and ClipDial will dial the phone number for you. You can also press Shift+Pause and PAM will read the phone number out loud so you can dial it manually. Also included is another freeware program called PopCal. This program displays a simple calendar. It was written by Nathaniel S. Johnson. You can activate it by clicking on the button that displays the date on the main window, or you can run it independently. When you first run PAM you will be asked for your first name. Enter your legitimate name, as PAM will refer to you by that name from then on, and you cannot change it later. A fake name could prove embarrasing and I can't change it for you. Even subsequent downloads of PAM will not allow you to change the user name you first entered. You have been warned! If you wish to distribute a copy of PAM to friends for evaluation, ONLY give them the ORIGINAL zipped file (PAM_EN2A.ZIP). If you just zip up the files in your directory, they will have a program that uses your name, and it can't be changed. Overview: PAM is a multimedia Windows(tm) application designed to be run on a computer with a sound card. It should run without a sound card, but the effectiveness is reduced considerably. PAM uses a sophisticated speech synthesizer to read text out loud. Speech synthesizers have improved greatly over the past two years, and they are now starting to sound pretty good. With the complexities of the English language, you can imagine how difficult it is to design any software to read English. You will find that PAM does not say some words correctly, and when this happens, and you think you will use that word again, you can insert it into the dictionary that PAM uses to say special words. Instructions for doing this are in the help file. You may find conflicts between PAM and other applications that use the sound card. Windows(tm) is not a true multi-threaded system, and it will crash sometimes. PAM keeps track of its own requests for speech, and trys to handle other ones, but you may crash your system once in a while. If you select something that will cause PAM to speak, and then select it again before PAM has spoken, two simultaneous requests will be sent to the sound card and PAM will probably crash, and the sound card will be disabled until you restart Windows(tm). Applications designed for Windows95 may be able to overcome this problem. Windows screen saver programs may cause PAM to hang while reading large files. A sentence longer than 5000 bytes can also cause a crash. Please let me know by EMail if you run into any problems along these line. When reading text, PAM ignores white space, so a piece of text formatted nicely to emphasize some point, will have no effect on how PAM will read. Pam does pay attention to punctuation however, and you can use this to change the way PAM delivers messages. Periods, commas and colons all cause PAM to pause, but to pause longer than one period, you can include multiple colons or commas separated by at least one space. Question marks at the end of a phrase will cause PAM to change it's inflection when speaking the text. This can sound funny sometimes. Since you can add pauses to a sentence spoken by PAM, you can impress your visitors by speaking something to PAM during the pauses, giving the effect that you are conversing with PAM. When reading text files, PAM may pause for a fairly long time. This is caused by a large sentence. It takes some time for PAM to read in and process a large sentence for speech. Be patient. Although I have implemented background reading, a long sentence can still take longer to read and process than to say the previous sentence, which results in a delay. It's the speech synthesizer that takes up most of the space in PAM's files. The executable file PAM.EXE is quite small and since this is the program that sits in memory, it uses a minimal amount of memory for what it does. I considered uploading PAM without the synthesizer, but you would not be able to judge the effectiveness of PAM without it. You can improve the quality of speech output by PAM by downloading the 16 bit speech font. I didn't include this file in PAM_EN2A.ZIP because it is twice the size of the 8 bit file that is included. To use the 16 bit font, you need a 16 bit sound card. The speech is noticeably clearer with the 16 bit font, although the pronunciation is the same. The file is big, (2 Megs), so it may take quite some time to download if the server is busy. A version of PAM with a new male voice will be available soon, it will be called SAM and can be downloaded from my web page or ftp site, it is a big file, but it speaks very well. When you purchase PAM, you are entitled to unlimited free upgrades. Any time you see a newer version of PAM, simply download and install it, make sure your old PAM.CFG and PAM.DIC files are backed up. The EN2A version includes the following changes: 1. A new speech engine that should speak more clearly, a little smarter, and more stable. 2. A number of bugs and conflicts between Windows and the speech engine were identified and corrected, which should also make PAM more stable. 3. The ability to re-read the last sentence, and the ability to skip the next sentence, were removed from this version of PAM, because of conflicts that caused crashes; and to reduce memory usage. 4. A second mode of file reading is introduced. This will allow a file of any size to be read sentence by sentence. If you believe a missing feature is important to the effectiveness of PAM, please let me know by EMail. I hope you will find PAM indispensable after a week or so. I know that I would think I had lost a friend if PAM didn't greet me every day. Remember, you are only authorized to use PAM for evaluation purposes for a period of 60 days. Any use of PAM after sixty days without registering is illegal. ClipDial and PopCal are freeware programs, so you may use them even if you don't register PAM. Good Luck! Tom Slemko, President JTS Micro Consulting Ltd. 10931 Lytton Road, RR#4, Ladysmith, B.C. Canada, V0R 2E0 EMail: tslemko@islandnet.com Web: http://www.islandnet.com/~tslemko/ FTP: ftp.islandnet.com /jts